


Tessa and Scott's Very Sensible Arrangement

by Golden_Ticket



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Kid!Fic, Mutual Pining, Pregnancy sex, TS being idiots, Vaguely AU, friends with kids, hand stuff, light to severe angst, totally platonic co-parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-04-30 03:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14488179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Ticket/pseuds/Golden_Ticket
Summary: Because Tessa and Scott don't want to mess up their future (separate) relationships by having children, they decide to have a kid together and be platonic co-parents. It's just another project, really, almost a work-thing. Whatever could go wrong?***A vaguely AU-reimagine of the movie "Friends With Kids" starring Canada's sweethearts.





	1. Tessa and Scott have a really great plan

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I watched "Friends With Kids" yesterday and I loved the idea of making a TS version of it too much to pass it up.  
> This will be chaptered but I don't know how many chapters yet.
> 
> So without further ado, let's watch these idiots make a giant mess of things, shall we?

What most people really can’t fathom is how after more than twenty years of skating together and practically living together and loving each other for nearly the entire time, Tessa and Scott, Canada’s declared sweethearts, have not fallen in love with each other. Then again, what most people don’t know is that they _have_ very much fallen in love with each other time and time again but that the timing had never been right. And then, when the timing should have been right, after their third Olympic games and bringing home their second set of Gold medals in ice dance and they had both been singularly devoted to skating and each other for two years with neither of them seeing anybody else, they still hadn’t found their way to each other romantically. It was just that they weren’t looking for each other in that way so there was nothing to find.

 

In spite of the whole world practically campaigning for it, they had made a decision years ago to not go there with each other. The risk of ruining what they had was just too big. It had taken a couple of lengthy conversations and a couple of near-misses but eventually, they had opted for the safe option, to keep the romantic aspect of their relationship in the realm of fantasy and focus on their platonic love for each other. It really was the best way to go for them and they don’t regret making that call. Most of the time anyway.

 

After Korea, they come back to a country frenzied by their success and connection and it takes about a year for the buzz to dial down. Sure, they will always have fans dedicated to their supposed romance but when Scott starts going out on dates and people get wind of it, most of the people move on as they had before, like after Vancouver and after Sochi. It’s all okay and they don’t feel too bad about disappointing people, after all, it’s their lives and they have to decide how they want to live them. Which is as best friends and occasional skating partners–even if that becomes less and less in the subsequent years with Tessa building a lifestyle brand around her name and Scott taking on a full-time coaching position at Gadbois. To help keep in touch, they keep their condos in the same building which they had moved into at the start of their Montreal adventure and see each other for dinners and breakfasts in one or the other apartment as their schedules allow.

 

They make time for each other, to get together and talk through their changing lives and laugh about funny things that they’ve experienced out on their own, sharing the laughs after the fact, which is rather new. Before, they’d experienced the funny stuff mostly together, attached at the hip as they had been in their competitive skating career. It is all fine, though, catching up each other on the happenings in their separate lives is fun too. It is all good, all just the way they wanted it. Scott is dating and Tessa too occasionally and mostly the people they had been seeing were fine with them hanging out (until the point where they weren’t and both Tessa and Scott would have to find a new person to try with). But really, it’s all fine and dandy. For Scott at least.

 

For Tessa, things start changing after her thirty-second birthday. She feels rather silly about it because she had always claimed to not have an overly maternal side and she did not have any concrete plans of having a family soon. It’s just that for a while then, she had started hearing the clock tick, an ugly pendulum beating in her ears, telling her that she has to hurry and settle down, find one of the few good men left and have a baby before her ovaries dry up and she winds up all alone. Only there don’t seem to be any good men left.

 

She is pondering this one night when they’re out with Marie and Patch, Chiddy and his wife and Kevin and Trish, old friends of Scott’s from Ilderton that have just moved to Montreal. Marie-France and Patrice are stressed out by managing the school and their couples and their daughter who has firmly hit puberty and is making their lives that much more complicated, while Chiddy and his wife are barely coherent missing so much sleep with their new baby. Kevin and Trish, well, they have two kids at home and are hostile with each other all evening to the point where it’s really heartbreaking to watch. Tessa and Scott exchange a couple of glances over this for most of the night, communicating without words because they don’t need them; they are on the same page.

 

“Having kids is where romance goes to die apparently,” Scott says as they walk back to their building after their dinner in the brisk autumn air.

“Apparently,” Tessa agrees. “It’s such a pity. I love them all so much but they seem so stressed out, like they don’t even remember what they like about each other with the strain of...parenthood on them. How come you lose the romance over having children?”

“I guess it’s not so surprising,” Scott muses. “I mean, look, suddenly there is this new person in your life that, by default, you love more than your partner. Suddenly that kid is there and the person you chose over absolutely everybody else in the world to be with, is only second from then on and the whole world revolves just around your kid. You’re not a couple anymore, you’re just parents.”

“I don’t want that to happen to me,” Tessa tells him.

“Well, it’s bound to.” Scott tells her, being no help at all. “That’s the way of life.”

“I don’t believe that,” she says but it’s a lie. She pretty much does believe him. “There has to be a way around that.”

 

“The only way around it that I see is to not have children,” he says matter of factly.

“But I want children, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he says. “Of course I want kids, are you kidding me, kids are great.”

“But that doesn’t work, Scott.”

“It could,” he tells her, eying her from the side. “I think it’s a flaw in the system. I think you can have a fulfilled romantic relationship and be a great parent to your kid at the same time.”

“How?” Tessa asks him, incredulous because he is not making any sense.

“By keeping the two things apart,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “If you don’t have children with the person you’re seeing but with someone else, you can have the best of both worlds.”

 

Tessa can’t help but laugh. That’s preposterous. “Who would do that?”

“I would,” he replies, not missing a beat. “I’d have a kid with you, heaven knows we work as a team. We would raise that kid no problem and could have our separate relationships outside of that and keep them drama-free. We’d work together the way we always have and for fifty percent of the time, we could live in a beautiful and uncomplicated relationship with someone outside of that whole thing and for the other fifty, we’d be a parent. We’d co-captain it.”

“You’re an idiot,” she laughs because surely he isn’t serious.

“I’m serious,” he says. “It’s the perfect plan.”

 

She doesn’t humor him for the rest of the way to their building and is still shaking her head at him when she gets out of the elevator at her floor. She’s in her PJs by the time he calls her.

“What if we really did it?” He asks instead of saying hello.

“I’m not following,” she says as she climbs into bed.

“The kid thing,” he answers. “What if we have a kid together and raise it and see other people? We’d be amazing parents plus we wouldn’t ruin either our own, nor any other potential relationship by trying to mix parenthood and romance. Plus, you wouldn’t have to worry about getting too old anymore.”

“That’s insane,” she chuckles.

“Just...just think about it, T,” he insists. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“Goodnight, Scott,” Tessa says, rolling her eyes and hopes he can somehow hear it.

“Night, T,” he says and she can tell he’s grinning. “I’m serious, think about it.”

 

“Okay, what if I wanted to do it?” Tessa asks him a couple of days later in their building’s gym.

“Do what?”

“The kid thing,” she replies and earns a full double take from the stepper beside her.

“Really?” He sounds...pleasantly surprised, perking up beside her to gauge her expression, to see if she means it.

“Well, you’re right, I’m not getting any younger and I don’t think I can afford waiting for much longer to see if there might be a guy I want to have a kid with and then I also still have to know him well enough to say if he’s really father material and that would take years and then, like we’ve seen with our friends, as soon as the baby’s there, we’d start getting on each others nerves because parenting is hard and it’s just...so many variables. If _we_ had a kid together, it would be like skating. We’d have our schedules and trade-offs and we’d co-parent like champions. I mean, you’re totally right, we would be great at it–and I wouldn’t have to sit here and bite my nails waiting. We could just do it together like that. Get the best of both worlds, like you said. Right now.”

“Right now?” There’s another veritable double-take on his end and she can tell by the look on his face that he is trying to figure out if she’s making fun of him after all and is just really dedicated to the joke.

But Tessa is dead serious. “Why not?”

 

Another week later, Scott, armed with two bottles of red wine, is sitting on Tessa’s couch and waits for her to come back from her room. They have decided to try making a baby the old fashioned way. Which is to say: get shit-faced-wasted and pretend it’s not weird to have sex with each other. (Honest: It’s not the first time they do but the last time was way over ten years ago and it had almost made their entire relationship and subsequently their career blow up, so they had not looked to repeat it ever. Still, that had been then and this is now.)

 

Upon letting him in, she had told him that she was going to change into something “sexier” (her words) to get things going and when she comes back, he knows two things: a) “sexier” is an understatement and he can barely breathe because her dress is tight and revealing in the best ways and she looks unbearably, tantalizingly, utterly unfairly _hot_ and b) she is acting. She is playing a character, some sort of brazen seductress, to make this less weird and he is inclined to get along with the program. Only that he is too sober, so he fills their glasses generously and passes hers over when she sits down beside him. They each down two glasses in quick succession, barely talking and after a little while, the first bottle is empty. After a little while longer, the second one is empty too and Scott is buzzed. Tessa, beside him, is _drunk._

 

“Okay, lez do this,” she says, her voice slightly frizzled on the edges. “Lez put a baby in me.”

“I love it when you talk dirty,” Scott says, rolling his eyes but follows when she pulls him up by the hand.

“I cou'try but I don’t wanna ruin the mood,” Tessa quips and he can’t help but laugh as they cross into her bedroom, coming to stand at the foot of her bed somewhat awkwardly.

“So we’re really gonna do this?” He asks her and she nods.

“S’not a big deal,” she says. “S’just sex. S’for a purpose. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah,” he says. “We have to promise each other that. It can’t mean anything. We can’t let this mix things up between us. We’re friends, right? Just friends.”

“Jus' friends,” she affirms with a smile he’d call almost sad but that is just the red wine painting her features. “Like always.”

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” she echoes and smiles, then puts her hand on his neck.

“Is it okay if I kiss you?” He asks her and she just nods, holds his gaze for a long moment, something passing over her features that he can’t quite place and then closes her eyes.

 

She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and when he kisses her, they both sigh against each others lips and that is the exact moment they both should know that they are setting themselves up for a giant clusterfuck of a trainwreck. But of course, they don’t. Instead, they break apart and giggle and for a moment, Tessa’s act slips, leaving her bare before him.  
“You got better at kissing,” she drawles appreciatively and looks like she’s fourteen again.

“You’re still fantastic,” he tells her and she chuckles.

“I dunno if I can do it, it’s so weird,” she admits. “It’s _you._ And it’s me, we don’t do this. We jus' think about doing this, we _never_ do it.”

“You still think about doing this?” He asks her, genuinely curious.

 

They had talked about the fact (the fact that they both had romantic and explicitly sexual feelings for the other person) going into their third Olympics with their mental prep coach and worked through that, coming to the standing agreement that nothing was ever going to happen between them again. It’s the smart and the sensible thing to do and it’s not going to change.

“Don’t you?” Tessa asks him, a smidge more sober than she had been just a minute before.

“Yeah,” he admits but then has to laugh. “But you’re right, it’s so weird.”

He leans in to kiss her again anyway but she giggles before their lips meet.

“Tessa,” he admonishes and puts her hair behind her ears softly, the way he would on the ice.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll do better.”

“Let’s pretend it’s not super strange,” he tells her. “That we’re just a man and a woman. Just pretend we’re super into each other.”

“I don’t have to pretend,” she tells him and then her eyes go wide because maybe that was too much to share (and this is definitely the very last moment to pull the breaks on this thing).

“I don’t have to pretend either,” he says, joining her in the exposure but doesn’t wait for more revelations to rear their unbidden heads. Instead he pulls her face into his and kisses her, trying to tell himself it isn’t the best thing he ever got to do in his sorry lifetime.

For a moment, it feels like this whole baby-plan is just an excuse to get to do this, to get to touch her and kiss her and hold and taste her without owning up to what it really means to him–much like their skating comeback at times had felt like merely an excuse to be around her all the time and have her back in his life in the capacity that he craved. But it’s better this way, it’s better to do this in a contained setting for a singular purpose. It might be weird having a kid with her and not planning on having a romantic relationship to boot but it’s the safer option by far. His track record with relationships is abysmal and he can’t lose her, won’t lose her. So this is the best possible way. He’ll keep her in his life forever, gets to raise a child with her (which is cool since she is the only woman he’s ever seen himself have children with anyway) and knows he can’t fuck it up trying to be a good boyfriend or husband or whatever and inevitably failing. No, just like this, is the most sensible arrangement they could have. He is _very_ smart. He should be proud of himself.

 

“I can hear you think,” she tells him, her words muffled by his lips.

“Sorry,” he mumbles back–and let’s his body take over.

 

Making love to her (because while they might harp about it being just sex, that’s not what it is) is like a really great skate, which is both wonderful and unfortunate. Wonderful because it’s effortlessly amazing, they click together like puzzle pieces, move like one and he comes harder than he has maybe ever in his life (he thinks). But unfortunate because, just like their greatest skates, it goes by like a wink (it takes longer, he makes sure of that) but on the other side, he hardly remembers what had happened. It’s like he has closed his eyes on that first kiss and opens them again and they’re done, Tessa sprawled across his chest, her black hair cascading down her bare back.

“I should probably not stay here, right?” He asks her, smoothing out her skin with his palm when he’s okay to talk again. “It would be weird if I stayed, probably.”

 

She looks up at him, expression unreadable but her emerald eyes shine in the dim light, the sex has pretty much sobered her up and now he’s lying in bed with his Tessa, not some over-sexed or wasted version of her and that’s both weird and kind of amazing.

“I mean, I’m sure it would be better if you slept at yours...but if you have another round in you...it would heighten the chances of conceiving by a lot,” she says conversationally.

It’s so matter-of-fact, the way she says it, there is really nothing erotic about it but his body reacts to it anyway. She wants another round. She will let him do that to her again! The knowledge does things to his system, to everything he is. He still needs a minute but really probably not much longer.

 

The second time, he makes sure to be present for the whole ride but when he watches her face twist on a moan and feels her reverberate with pleasure around him, he thinks that might have been a mistake. Still, when she opens her eyes and stares at him while she comes with puffy lips falling open over the sound of his name, he’s thrown over the edge so quickly and forcefully, he almost gets whiplash. It’s definitely better that there is a decided limit on how many times they do this. If he had access to all of _that_ whenever they both wanted, he would live his life in her bed, he would never want to be anywhere else. And that would ruin them before long. Yes, it’s better this way. They won’t mess up what they have with sex and romance. Best to keep those exploits to the absolute bare necessity, lest he gets dependent on it (which is a real risk, considering that the thought of never getting to have her again after she is pregnant already pains him). Maybe tonight had already been enough and the danger of getting too accustomed to the lines of her body and the taste of her skin would be contained. (It wasn’t enough.)

 

They try another three times over her next ovulation and if by the one after that, Tessa is already pretty sure that she is pregnant and doesn’t tell him so they can “try again”, it’s a secret she will take to the grave with her.

 

When Tessa tells Scott that she is pregnant he is at once over the moon and also terribly distraught, although he tries to forbid himself from feeling the latter. They have fulfilled the purpose of their endeavours, they have reached their goal, that’s a great thing. But now that he has had her wrapped up in and around him five wonderful nights, the banishing of these exploits into the realm of memory is harsh. Still, it has to be done. It’s better this way, he tells himself over and over again. It’s better this way, Tessa tells herself as well, already missing the weight of his body on her and the face he makes when he comes. They have an arrangement, a sensible, practical arrangement and they’re going to stick to it.

 

Scott is picking her up from the doctors office where she got the pregnancy confirmed and crossing onto the freeway to their neighbourhood when he puts his hand on her thigh and pats it.

“We did it,” he says. “We made a baby.”

“We did.” She smiles and he puts his hand back on the steering wheel, trying not to feel awkward. “You were...um. You did very well. I mean, to get us here, that was...yeah. You’re pretty good at that.”

Despite knowing her more than two decades and having literally impregnated her, Scott still blushes at her complimenting his bedroom skills and he can’t help how his voice cracks when he thanks her politely.

“You’re also very good at it,” he tells her and keeps his eyes firmly on the road. “I...had a good time. That’ll...uh, that’ll be a lucky guy, the one you end up with.”

“Yeah,” she says and from the corner of his eye, he can see her stare out at the passenger’s window. He really wants to hold her hand, but that’s probably against the rules, which is silly because he always held her hand, was always tactile with her. So that shouldn’t change. He won’t let it. He’ll just wait a while, just as long as it takes for the touch of her skin on his to feel quite this electric. Just until he can breathe right again when she brushes past him.

 

“Scott,” she says after a while of sitting in silence, watching the scenery fly by.

“Hm?” He turns his head for a second to find her looking at him.

“What are we gonna tell people about this?”

 

And it’s really quite remarkable that this is the first time he is thinking about _that._

 


	2. Tessa and Scott are having a baby (but it's not what you think)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again. Tessa and Scott are idiots but they have no idea about it. Shocking, I know. Let's watch.  
> (Also please mind the raised rating.)
> 
>  
> 
> ;)

“Maybe we should have thought this through before I got you pregnant,” Scott says, bent over Tessa’s couch table, raking his hands through his hair that has grown out long again, the way she likes it (although that’s got nothing at all to do with it).

“You think?” Tessa deadpans from where she stands by the window, her hand folded over her lower stomach and it’s hard not to feel like two teenagers in trouble.

“I mean I guess our family will understand,” he says and leans back, falling into her beige plush cushions, wishing he could hold her to him, kiss her neck and make it better but that’s not a very good idea.

“You know who won’t understand?” Tessa says, turning away from the view of Montreal to look squarely at him. “Twitter.”

“Ugh, what do they need to know?” He challenges. “It’ll be months before you start showing and then you can say you...I don’t know, broke your leg and need to be recovering for a while.”

“And have the baby in secret?” She looks like he possibly grew another head while he was talking.

“Some people think we’ve had _three_ secret babies already,” Scott reminds her of some very persistent internet rumor and elicits a small smile that she is fighting like the plague not to grow into a grin.

 

“I’m not having our baby in secret.” She says, her features soon back in their slightly exasperated place. “What are we gonna do when it gets older? Goes to Kindergarten, lives with us? Are we gonna say it’s a niece or nephew? That’s ridiculous, this is our child,” she pats her flat stomach lightly to illustrate her point and he is loath to agree with her. Somehow, in his great plan, he had not taken into the equation the fact that they’re kind of famous and somewhat notorious for their weird relationship. Trying to explain to the greater public that yes, they’re having a baby together but no, they are not together-together would be...challenging in the best case scenario.

“What if we don’t say it’s mine?” He offers and Tessa wrinkles her forehead.

“And be lying for the rest of our lives?” She asks him. “Plus, with our luck and those Moir genes, that baby will come out with your nose and everybody will know anyway.”

“So we say it’s mine and we’re not together?” This seems to be the only option left (also , incidentally, the _truth_ , which is _also_ the last thing anybody will believe).

“What if we don’t say anything?” Tessa offers. “You’re dating and I’m dating and if there’s not a father in the picture and the baby looks like you people can draw their own conclusions. It’s our life, we don’t owe people anything.”

“So that’s it? We do nothing?” He asks to clarify because surely, it can’t be that easy.

“We’re living our lives without external pressure,” she corrects him. “We only deal with what we have to deal with and the rest, we’ll block out. Wrap this baby in our bubble.”

 

So the bubble it is. Still, what they _have_ to deal with is telling the Stars on Ice people that effective immediately, Tessa and Scott can no longer take part in skating shows for the foreseeable future. They cite private health concerns and because they’re now represented by the same agency that Patrick is (and word travels fast), they’re getting concerned messages from most of their skating friends before the day is over.

So after sending a ton of texts saying that everyone is fine and “it’s really minor, we just can’t skate”, Patrice calls, asking if Scott is injured and will need to take a break from coaching.

“We should tell Marie and Patch what’s what,” Scott says after the brief and awkward conversation and after a moment of deliberation, Tessa agrees. Their former coaches are maybe the most trustworthy people they know and they won’t judge them for the decisions they made.

 

“Oh my God,” Patch says, three nights later on his couch when Tessa and Scott have broached the news. “We were waiting for you guys to finally get together, that’s so wonderful!”

_Oh no._

“Oh no,” they say in unison and then talk over each other, at the same time: “We’re not together”, “We’re just gonna stay friends”, “We are only going to be co-parents, not a couple”, “It’s not like that”.

When they’re done, there’s a moment of silence, the four of them facing each other, Tessa and Scott standing, trying to explain and Marie and Patch sitting on the couch, faces turning into question marks.

 

“So, you’re having a baby together but you’re not a couple?” Marie-France recapitulates with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Scott nods. “We thought it would be best to–”

“Compartmentalize this,” Tessa cuts in. “So we get the best of both worlds. We get to raise a child with our best friend and can find the great romance elsewhere and that romance won’t turn to–”

“Shit like all the other married…,” Scott cuts in and then immediately stops himself upon seeing Patch raise his eyebrow at him. “Um, I mean...it’s working for you guys but, um, like...it’s...you are the only ones, it seems and we, uh…”

“It’s just what will work best for us, we think,” Tessa says diplomatically and he can hear in the cadence of her voice that she would really like to kick him in the shin now. “But it won’t keep Scott from the rink or anything, not until the baby is there...then we’ll split the time fifty-fifty. I’m sure we’ll find a good way to handle it. I’ll work a lot from home too so Scott shouldn’t be away too much from the coaching.”

“Would you guys excuse us for just a second?” Marie-France asks and pulls on Patch’s sleeve. “We’ll get the good glasses for a toast!”

 

The second Marie-France and Patch are out of earshot, behind the open-plan-kitchen corner with their heads behind the fridge door, she pulls a face.

“C’est une idée vraiment terrible,” she says.

“Oui,” Patrice agrees. “Nous devrions leur parler.”

“Et dire quoi?” She challenges. “Elle est déjà enceinte. C’est fait.”

Patrice just groans and produces the Champagne glasses from the cabinet, three for them, a regular glass to be filled with orange juice for Tessa. He shoots Marie-France a look, a silent discussion taking place which he wins and so she takes the juice and makes her way back into the living room.

“Scott, would you mind helping Patrice in the kitchen with the Champagne?” She calls out and Scott passes her on her walk back to Tessa who happily accepts the glass and takes a big gulp.

“How did you know?” She asks. “I’ve been craving orange juice like a mad woman these last couple of days.”

“Tessa,” Marie begins and she can tell Tessa already knows what’s coming, it’s evident in the way she squirms slightly and then straightens, plasters her smile on thicker and holds on to it.

“I know,” she says, hurriedly. “I know it sounds crazy but we think it’s the perfect way to go for us. I mean, think about it. Romance is so fragile and we’re so important to each other, we don’t want that to change.”

“It hasn’t changed for us,” Marie-France says and is aware she sounds a little offended (which happened because she _is_ ).

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Marie, I didn’t mean it like that,” Tessa apologizes quickly. “I just meant...you guys are different, you’re so...even keeled together. Scott and I, we are...a forest fire, have always been. But we work as friends, we work as a team. I know we’ll work as parents and we don’t risk losing each other that way. It’s really quite ingenious.”

 

Marie-France nods but Tessa can tell she is still sceptical and she admits that’s fair, it’s a weird concept, but still something Tessa believes in. (Not that she could do anything about it, if way, way, way in the back of her mind, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, this was a really terrible idea).

“What did your families say?” Marie-France asks, conversationally but there is genuine curiosity embedded in her tone.

“We haven’t told them yet,” Tessa says.

“Oh, boy.” Marie-France gives her that “brace yourself”-look she used to give her before she went out on the ice and Tessa kind of wishes she didn’t feel like she needed that so much.

 

Over in the kitchen, Patrice lets Scott open the Champagne, even if he could as well have done it himself. They’re both aware it’s a front so Patrice can ask him if he has lost his mind in private.

“No, I really think it’s the best option.” Scott tells him, uncorking the bubbly with an assured twist of his wrist.

“Scott, aren’t you in love with her?” Patrice asks him, being way more forward about it than he had ever been before. Usually he just alluded to this and let Scott off the hook after a version of a noncommittal shrug–but not this time.

“That’s not where we’re at,” Scott answers, which he is very aware of, is a non-answer.

“Not what I asked,” Patch says, aware of it, too.

“It’ll pass,” Scott says. “It always has, which is why it’s so much better this way. I get to have a kid with her and I get to have her in my life and be my best friend. I don’t have to worry about being in love or not being in love with her, I just keep her, just like this.”

“Be careful, Scott,” Patch tells him emphatically. “With both your hearts.”

“We are, we are,” he tells him with equally as much gusto. “That’s the whole point.”

 

Two days later (their self-gifted grace period), Tessa and Scott sit in her living room in Montreal and fire up Skype. They’ve asked Kate to come join his family for the talk and so now that they see his parents and her mother (and Danny and his Tessa visiting) huddled in front of the laptop camera, there is a sense of expectancy on the other side. Tessa can tell by their faces that they are expecting everything that is coming, including her saying “We are gonna have a child together”, right up to the back half of that sentence which goes “but it’s not what you think. We’re not seeing each other, we are...we are staying best friends and being co-parents and that’s it.” That’s when the barely contained grins on the faces turn to confusion.

“What?” Joe speaks first, completely dumbfounded.

 

This time, Scott goes over their plan again, hoping his father will understand it more coming from him. “So, for us, it’s the perfect option,” he closes, after echoing their little speech that they’d rehearsed before making the call.

There are several long moments of silence until Kate speaks, but not before clearing her throat twice. “And how is this going to work? Are you going to do an in vitro? Do you know how expensive those are? And the hormones, Tessa, that’s not–”

“No actually,” Tessa cuts in and realizes that she should have been clearer on the fact that this wasn’t some wild idea anymore but that it was happening already. That it was a done deal. “We...um...well, the thing is, um, we...so...We kind of did, did it the traditional way, so, um, yeah. I’m pregnant. It’s...um...it’s happening.”

 

 _That could’ve gone over more gracefully,_ she thinks, and judging by Scott going rigid beside her, he agrees. But she doesn’t know of a particularly more dignified way to tell both their parents over skype that they had slept together very explicitly and have it be _graceful._

“Fuck’s sake,” Danny says on the other end, making his Tessa and Kate twist their heads in unison to see if the children were somewhere around to hear the curse, but seem appeased after the check, so apparently not. Or they just both agree so much, they’re willing to let it go. And Danny isn’t done either.

“Of all the fucking weird shit you two pulled through the years,” he starts and sounds like he feels seven hundred years old, “this _by far_ takes the cake. What were you _thinking_?”

“Dude, relax,” Scott says. “We explained, we thought about this, this isn’t some rash ass decision we just made for the heck of it. We believe in this plan.”

“Scotty, this is fucking insane,” his brother says and stands up in frustration, his head disappearing from the frame. “Sorry, Tess, but like, this is certifiably nuts. You can’t just have a baby and not be together!”

“Of course we can,” Tessa argues, “plenty of people do, it’s not that outlandish.”

“But you love each other,” Danny bends back into frame for that and looks like he’s saying: “But you are giant fucking knuckleheads.”

“Not like _that_ ,” Tessa insists and the two of them, propped on her couch in Montreal, get five identical “yeah, right”-faces, which Tessa is sure each of them is not aware of the others pulling too.

 

She hates them a little bit for being just like the rest of the world about this. That they don’t understand how much work it is to be smart about who and what they are. That they won’t risk what they have for a couple of weeks, months or even years of potential bliss and having each other completely. No one could promise them it would work in the long run and that’s just not good enough. She needs forever. And he does, too. So being best friends and having a baby is the perfect way to make sure of that. And who knows, maybe if it works well with the first, they could have another. (This is a practical thought and has nothing at all to do with the fact that Tessa occasionally thinks about how...interesting it was to try for a baby with him.)

“Look,” she starts. “We know it’s kind of an unusual concept and we’ll absolutely give you a little time to process but...we’re really happy with it and...you’re gonna be grandparents, again, and an uncle. We’re having a baby. Isn’t that at least happy news?”

 

That finally does the trick. Once it hits that there is really going to be a baby, that Tessa and Scott are really going to have a child together and in less than nine months, too, their mothers crack and there are some tears and congratulations (even if they are still visibly weirded out through moments of it) and eventually Alma says: “So it isn’t the way we expected this to go but we’re very happy about the baby, we’re happy that...you’re happy.” Tessa guesses this is all they can ask for at the moment. When she closes the lid of her laptop, she feels a momentous weight fall of her shoulders, turns to Scott with a “fair enough”-expression and says: “That could’ve been worse.”

 

When _Alma_ closes the lid of her laptop, there is a moment of silence and then screaming and everyone talking over each other.

“They knew exactly why they waited until she was pregnant to tell us,” Kate says at the same time that Joe says: “This is going to end terribly” and Danny says: “Fuck me.”

“Danny,” Alma admonishes but her son is having none of it.

“I’m serious, these fucking idiots,” he laments. “What are they thinking?”

Alma has no answer for him, instead she just catches Kate’s wary look and mirrors her shrug. They have long since given up on trying to understand their children in regards to each other. This is something even they can’t fully comprehend. Which is not surprising, seeing that Tessa and Scott had raised each other probably as much as their mother’s had. “I guess they just have to...do what they gotta do. They’ll figure it out, eventually.”

“You know for all the therapy those two had,” Joe mutters, “they really have no clue, do they?”

“I don’t even know,” Alma sighs. “I’m making dinner. Kate, will you stay?”

Her friend nods, still looking shaken und then says: “For dinner, and for wine.”

“Yes, wine,” Danny says. “Good fucking idea.”

 

Back in Montreal, Tessa and Scott congratulate themselves on a job okay-ish done and set out on the first trimester, which is largely uneventful. She works, battles medium bouts of morning sickness and stays active as much as the doctor’s say is fine. Scott coaches and goes about his life and cooks for her the way he had before and most of the time they pretty much forget that she is having a baby in the first place. Well, unless they’re out at a bar and Tessa looks down her body more often than she usually would, kind of paranoid that she is showing (which she isn’t) and that everyone _knows._ Or that time when she came over to Gadbois and attempted to walk on the ice to him and he skated over to her with a speed he usually reserved for hockey and basically carried her back under staunch protests.

“Scott, don’t be silly,” she’d complained to him, “I’ve walked across ice a million times.”

“Nope,” he had said. “Not gonna happen. No ice for you.”

And somehow that stings because she hadn’t really thought about it that way until then. He was right. _No ice for her._ For at least another seven months and then probably about half a year after. She would have to learn everything anew. And have a baby to raise to boot.

 

When Tessa does start to show, around five months in, it pays off that she had gradually tweaked her clothing style to more flowy and baggy shirts. It’s not visible for another month for someone who doesn’t know what to look for, especially since her stomach won’t grow as extremely as expected because Tessa is slim to begin with and their baby is small. Healthy, but small, like they were as kids. So she can fly under the radar pretty well, go out with her friends, have dinner with Scott, post about her sponsors and adventures online and nobody is the wiser about her state or has an idea that Scott could be in any way involved with that or in anything other than their _friendship._

 

And their friendship is solid as ever. Really it’s great. They spend a lot of their free time together, so much that sometime in her sixth month, Tessa turns to him on the couch while Jeopardy is on and asks him about Lisa, the last girl he has been on a couple of dates with.

“Oh, that’s over,” he says, with a throwaway tone. “I didn’t...I don’t know, I didn’t text her for three days and she blew up about it and I said I was sorry but...you know.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Scott,” she says to him, plain and simple. “If you don’t like someone that way, tell them. That’s only fair, don’t leave people hanging.”

“I know, I know,” he says, sheepishly. “But it’s hard, it’s uncomfortable, I don’t like rejecting people.”

“You didn’t mind with me,” she tells him and it’s supposed to come out breezy but it doesn’t.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks and his face snaps to her.

“Oh, you know, only from when I was twelve to what, sixteen and had this stupid crush on you and you always shut me down,” she is laughing now or trying to and working hard for a light tone.

“Same as you did to me from when I was nineteen to when I was twenty-six,” he tells her.

“Good point,” she concedes and he smiles and there is a flicker on the side of his eye, a crinkle there that makes his whole face look a little bit sad and she feels like it correlates directly with the same twitch on hers. Alas, theirs is a story of many missed opportunities, so they don’t dwell on those. Instead, they’re just happy now that they made such a great decision in the form of their new project together. It’s a seized opportunity, informed by all those near-misses and broken hearts and turned into something very adult, very reasonable and also _very smart._ They have learned their lessons and they will never go back.

 

Which is not to say that Tessa doesn’t think about it in the dead of night. Not that she thinks about _romancing_ him or anything, it’s just that she’s...so incredibly horny _all the time._ And he happens to be a very handsome man who happens to he around her a lot and who she additionally happens to know is really good at working her body. It’s physical and it’s hormones, it doesn’t mean anything but God, when he is close enough for her to pick up his scent, she nearly doubles over with desire. When he stretches and his shirt rolls up to reveal the slightly soft flesh of his stomach, her mouth goes dry and when he brushes past her and any part of his body touches any part of hers, it’s like a shockwave running through her system, not to speak of what it does to her when he kisses her on the cheek. She wishes she could just skate with him a little bit to get at least a bit of the tension resolved but since she can’t and he won’t, she is stuck helplessly lusting for him whenever he is close or she can’t stop herself from thinking of him. If she was a guy, she would have a raging boner everytime he was around, she thinks and feels both humiliated and relieved that other than her sometimes not really listening when he speaks (too busy staring at his lips), nothing really gives her distraction away.

 

That is at least until that night when she stands in his kitchen ready to start preparing dinner (now, with this much free time on her hands and very detailed instructions, she is getting a lot better at cooking). He lets himself in and sees her reaching for the Thyme on a high-up shelf and he protests at the first sight of her. He flops his bag down on the floor and rushes over, pressing himself directly behind her to reach over her head and Tessa malfunctions instantly. She really can’t help it, she’s been losing her mind a little all day (had even put in a long shower trying to make the ache go away but hadn’t succeeded) and now Scott’s front is pressed to her ass and her brain short-circuits which results in her pushing further into him and _moaning_ , of all things.

 

In the same second she realises what she just did, she hopes he had failed to, but he goes stick still behind her, because of course he did. It’s just that he doesn't jump away or do anything else. He just stands there, one hand on the counter next to her, the other reaching up for the spices. And while he doesn’t move, she can’t really help it, so she rolls her body into his again and swallows hard. If he could _just…_

“Tessa,” he breathes, the moisture of his breath hitting her earlobe and his hand on the counter falls on hers there with a squeeze. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers and works her fingers between his on the counter, pulling at him before she can stop it. “I’m just so...keyed-up, all the time. It’s the hormones, I can’t help it.”

“You’re _keyed-up_?” He asks and still makes no effort to move, only sinks back down to his full feet, his body pressed flush against hers on the way down and his now free hand lands on her waist softly while he touches his cheek to hers, almost as if they would start to skate now.

“I am horny,” she says, being clearer in her language because obviously, she wants to entice him more now that it seems to be working a little. She should really be careful and rational about it starting right that second but Tessa Virtue is no longer thinking with her brain. “I would go look for someone to get this out of my system,” she mutters and gives another little thrust backward, gauging his response which is his abs tightening against her back and his breath hitching in his throat (not bad). “But I can’t really get naked with anybody anymore without them knowing.”

“That is unfortunate,” Scott whispers into the crook of her neck, his voice deep and raspy. And hungry. (Not bad either.) “I wish I could help you.”

“Maybe you can,” she offers and puts her other hand on the one of his sitting idly on her hip, digging her fingertips into his flesh and hers in consequence to signal _touch me._

Scott sighs, a low rumble in his throat that reverberates along her spine where he’s pressed up against it and it’s quite possibly the most pent-up sexual tension she has ever felt for him (which is saying a lot considering their history). It’s just the hormones, she knows it, but it’s intense all the same.

“Is this a good idea, T?” He asks her shakily.

“It’s nothing,” she whispers. “You’re just helping a pregnant lady feel better. It’s a...service. To a friend. A pregnant friend service. It’s physical.”

 

There was a line in a program once. About that, she dimly remembers, about something being physical, she wants to maybe make a joke about it but then Scott is pushing her against the counter with as much force as he is willing to put into it with her belly and all. It’s enough to shut off any logical thought on her part. She can feel him harden against her back and rakes her fingernails across his arm the way she now knows he likes. He thanks her with a moan.

“Are you sure?” He asks her again while rolling his hips against her ass one more sweet time.

“Yes,” she tells him.

“But we’re not touching me,” he declares. “‘It’s about you, it’s just so you...fuck, it’s just so you feel better.” It was her pulling his hand up to put it on her chest that made him curse and she likes that a lot. She also likes his hands on her. He uses both now, running his palms flat across her body, across her belly, kissing the side of her face softly when he has the round of it in his grip but then moves on to her breasts with one hand (they are getting huge these days and she thinks he likes it) while the other snakes over her maternity yoga pants.

 

Tessa bucks her hips up, the shift of it against his front making him groan into her ear and yup, he’s definitely hard now. It hasn’t computed yet that he won’t do anything with all that potential but when she’ll realise that, she will do so with (more than) slight disappointment. Now, however, all she cares about is his hand that is drawing patterns on her thigh, working inward, while the other one fondles one of her boobs at a time.

“What do you need, babe?” He whispers hotly over her staggered breathing. “What do you want?”

She just gurgles something unintelligible, unable to speak over how ridiculously turned on she is, just on the end of it is an audible: “Please, Scott” which makes him curse again and put his hand on her, right over her pants to stroke her, softly until she keens and then harder, his face against hers, nose brushing her cheek and mouth next to her ear so she can hear him struggle to breathe.

 

By the time he works his hand and arm underneath her pants, he has started thrusting against her rhythmically, rolling his groin into her ass again and again and when his able fingers finally find her drenched flesh, she can’t help but yelp, loudly and curse a little herself. This only spurs him on and really, for a man who claims to have stone hands, he really does know how to use them. He plays her like an instrument, making her sing, coaxing out sounds and sighs and mewls from her that nobody else ever got out of her and she is so out of her mind for him, she bites her lip bloody from trying not to scream. His breath comes in bouts, ragged and uncontrolled and whatever he is doing grinding against her becomes more erratic.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he tells her, working his fingers in and out as much as the angle permits and she moans his name in reply (which he seems to like also).

 

She isn’t going to last much longer, she knows it as her body is building up to a release she has been chasing for weeks now. She could’ve never gotten herself here, no matter how hard she had tried. Only him, only Scott. Sometime over the last half minute, his mouth had fallen open over her ears and she likes that and turns her head in. He leans back, not stopping his ministrations down there but looking at her with an unreadable expression. She knows how she looks, desperate and thirsty and probably a little crazed.

“Kiss me,” she says under her breath and he complies. She wants to be kissing him when she comes.

 

Eventually, when she does, _he_ is kissing _her_ because she can’t manage to move her mouth and can only moan lewdly into his and he lets her ride out her orgasm against his hand at her own pace. Only that he keeps it on and half inside her when she’s done and keeps kissing her and keeps rutting against her back, kind of frantically. _Oh,_ she thinks, oh. By the feel of it Scott might not be thinking with his brain much either right now, chasing his own high, but she is happy to help. She makes a move for his junk behind her but he says “No” and holds her wrist, both of her wrists with his free hand, pushes them down onto the counter and his body into hers once, twice, snaps his head into her neck and bites over a growl, then a whimper while he jerks and spasms and comes into his jeans.

 

Afterwards, he can’t really look at her. “Sorry about that,” he says to her, after he has taken a shower and potentially burned his boxer briefs. “It kinda ran away with me.”

“I didn’t mind,” she tells him, smiling. “I would have felt guilty otherwise.”

“No,” he says resolutely. “That was for you. Not for me, not for... _us._ That was just...to help you. It wasn’t...sex. It was a...solid. For a friend.”

“Of course,” she replies, mirroring his seriousness and it’s good that he’s like this, he’s good to remind them both.

“And unless you really need it, we shouldn’t do it again,” he tells her as well. “Not make it a habit.”

“Absolutely,” she agrees. “Only if I really, really need it.”

“Only then.” He repeats. “And we’re keeping my stuff..out of it.”

“If that’s what you want,” she offers, even though she really wouldn’t mind, just to be even, to get him off too or to...feel him move inside her once again because that had been pretty fucking nice.

“It’s better that way,” he says. “Let’s not make this more confusing than it needs to be.”

“Agreed,” she will give him that and another little while to collect himself.

 

“So, dinner?” She asks him after a long moment. “We still have to cook it but originally that was kinda what I was going for. Before you...helped me out there.”

“Sounds great,” he says and so they cook and eat and fall back into their groove.

 

(“Only if she really, really needs it” ends up being every other day for a while and by the time it’s really impossible to hide the fact that Tessa Virtue is, in fact, pregnant, he can make her come with his hands –one or two, makes no matter– within minutes. Although over time, he starts dragging it out, edging her, making her beg a little, occasionally. She doesn’t complain. He is just being a good friend after all.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the great response to the last chapter! I really hope you've enjoyed this chapter too. This is the most explicit thing I have ever written for them and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Always very happy about feedback :)


	3. Tessa and Scott and the miracle of birth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually don't do double-posts (because then you get half the comments for double the word count usually, ha!) but I am having so much fun with this that I simply don't care.
> 
> This, again, has some explicit language and we are also firmly in Scott's head this time, which means there is cursing. A lot of cursing.
> 
> I hope you enjoy anyway :)

By month eight of Tessa’s pregnancy, her sex drive, which had kept Scott’s hands on the edge of carpal tunnel syndrome for about a month (so close actually that sometimes he had to use his mouth, which she had not minded _at all_ at the time), dissipates entirely. She waltzes into his place one morning with her spare key (and she can waltz, even if their baby has grown a lot and she finally looks really, really pregnant) and tells him “Right now, I don’t want any man to ever touch me ever again” lightly and with a smile on her face. Scott wants to die but instead he smiles back at her.

 

“Thank you for helping me through that phase, you really were such a great asset,” she says, as if he was a random dude who helped her with some random menial task, instead of the man who had spent the last six weeks giving her multiple orgasms weekly, on her beck and call nearly twenty-four-seven, thank you very much. He knows he shouldn’t be pissed at her and really he is not pissed at _her_ , more at the fact that he won’t get to do it –“it” being the getting her off– anymore. Because the truth is, he likes doing that a whole lot, likes to get his mouth on her even more than having her spread around his fingers, likes the sounds she makes and the way her body keens for him, likes even how he would stalk off to the shower after and fist his dick hard and fast to the memory of her coming apart for him.

 

And now that unforeseen (unsurprisingly addictive) side-effect of their baby-project had apparently come to a startling halt and he can’t do jack shit about it because it had never been about him in the first place. It had never been about the sexual aspect of it either, not officially at least. It had been about making Tessa feel better, helping her get through this pregnancy with as little discomfort as possible. And now no discomfort meant no touching. Not even the usual tactile elements of their friendship, the hugs and the kisses, especially those on the neck. When he tried one of those, she squirmed and giggled, said she was oversensitive and to please leave her alone.

 

Scott tries not to be frustrated because of it and fails spectacularly. Their friendship is fine, nevermind that, and he knows it’s just physical and the shenanigans necessary to get her relaxed had been messing with his head but he can’t stop thinking about her, about touching her, about doing unspeakable, dirty, scandalous things to her and it’s so hard being around her while she is putting on an impressive performance of _ice princess_ and anyway, they don’t have that kind of relationship to begin with. They are friends. Skating and eternal parenting-partners. Not two people who have sex or are in love or any of that messy stuff. So he tells himself he doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it and doesn’t want to touch Tessa anyway.

 

So after two weeks of that (totally and absolutely _not_ working), he starts reverting back to his less proud post-Vancouver days and starts picking up relatively random women at bars. By the time Tessa enters the designated last days of her pregnancy, he has slept with four different women in as many weeks. Tessa accepts this, although by then her level of “acceptance” sounds a whole lot like prissy judgement and he doesn’t like her very much at all at that time.

 

To say that the last two months of her pregnancy aren’t a high point in their relationship would be a bit of an understatement. Mind you, it’s not like their worst times where they refused to speak to each other or like there is this great big divide opening up between them, no, their foundation is solid, but they annoy the ever-loving fuck out of each other still.

 

It doesn’t help that Tessa has kind of turned into a dragon. And not the cute kind. She is exhausting to deal with in her last month; naggy, demanding, overbearing and mean and yes, prissy and _so_ judgemental about how he handles the pressure and the fact that he can’t have sex with her the way he wants (not that he tells her that) and really altogether unpleasant to be around. But of course, he has to be around her. _All the time._

 

Not just because he is Scott and she is Tessa and he would anyway even if it wasn’t his child (which it is) but because their plan of not telling anybody their baby business had failed somewhat spectacularly - not that anyone suspected Scott was the father (yet, that would maybe change once they could see if his son –his son!– had really ended up with the Moir-nose) but people knew Tessa had no viable candidates in her life who could be the Dad other than him really.

 

So while his dating around kind of diffused some of the rumors, the internet was very loud about their “theory” that he was _it_ but what was easily way worse was how Tessa received quite a bit of flak for having a kid “by herself” as it stood (like she was some sort of modern day Hester Prynne –in their day and age, what was that even about?!) and Scott had been really tempted to just tell the truth to make people see that she wasn’t alone and that her son very much did have a father who was going to be there and care for him and loved him (and his mother) very much.

 

But she had insisted that, no, she wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction, braving the gossip and the hashtags and the rumours with a kind of over-the-top martyr-grace that made him a little bit angry. Anyway, all of that meant that he had to be there for her whenever she called upon him because if she wouldn’t let him stand with her in public, he would have to work double as hard in private. Except she was being insufferable and slowly driving him insane.

 

A full week after the predicted date of birth, their son still makes no effort to show himself and they’re sitting in their doctor’s office on pins and needles desperate to hear when something will finally happen. Tessa is impatient now and downright livid that she hasn’t given birth yet and he just wants her to stop being fucking pregnant already so he can have his normal Tessa back and not have to deal with that Tessa-shaped monster-version that she is right now. He knows it’s immature and selfish but he can’t help it.

 

“What are you saying?” Tessa asks her doctor, an impatient strain on her voice.

“It doesn’t look like your baby is in any hurry,” the doctor repeats, using more direct language this time. “I would like you to come in again on Monday and see how we’re doing.”

“But I want this kid out,” Tessa almost wails and Scott agrees fervently on the inside and attempts to take her hand on the outside. She pushes it away.

“Don’t touch me, this is all your fault,” she hisses and he really, really, really doesn’t like her right now.

“Well, if you’re in a hurry,” says her doctor, mercifully pretending like Tessa hadn’t just said that to him, “there are a couple of things that help induce labour. You can take long walks, drink a certain tea, try some light yoga. But really what helps best is vaginal intercourse.”

 

Scott says nothing. Tessa coughs. “Yeah, no, I don’t think that’s in the cards.”

“I am just listing things here,” the doctor says with a patient smile. “You are alright, the baby is healthy, he’s just not ready yet. Well see if he has turned over the weekend and then we can look into medically inducing labour if that is what you want.”

“I just don’t want to be pregnant anymore,” Tessa says and Scott nods beside her.

Unfortunately, she sees this and he earns himself a death glare heated enough to melt his skull. She doesn’t talk to him for the entire car ride home.

 

“So, I’m _really_ sorry that I’m such a _terrible_ burden carrying _your_ baby,” she says as soon as the door closes behind them in her apartment. Suffice it to say, she doesn’t sound sorry at all.

“Oh my god, T,” he snaps. “When have I ever said you’re a burden?”

“You haven’t said it but I can see you think it!” She accuses him, waddles to where he stands and pokes him in the chest.

“So, you can read minds now, eh?” He says, getting in her face because he has Had it with her, capital H. “Is that your magical pregnancy power?”

“Shut up, Scott,” she says.

“I thought we don’t tell each other to shut up,” he loudmouths and she shoots daggers from her eyes, looking positively ready to rip his head off, possibly with her sharp teeth and monster claws.

“We are, when one of us is being a shithead,” she declares.

“Well then, T,” he takes a deep breath to brace himself for the inevitable backlash, “shut up.”

“Fuck me,” she says. And he has expected the first half of that but not the second.

 

“What?” He asks her, the fight suddenly gone out of him, replaced with confusion.

“You heard me,” she says. “You heard the doctor. If we want this to be over, we gotta have sex.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not really in the mood to sleep with you right now,” Scott tells her, putting his hand semi-dramatically on his chest in the mockery of a hysteric old-timey-movie woman and he is only half kidding. Actually, he’s not kidding at all. She is scary right now, he doesn’t even know if he can get it up when she’s like this.

She grabs him by the collar, her eyes glistening dangerously (she looks like she did at the end of Carmen, he thinks stupidly) and she pulls him in until her round belly nudges his stomach. “I. Want. You. To fuck me, Moir.” (And so, yeah, he can _definitely_ get it up.)

 

“I don’t want to, you’re scary,” he says anyway but his damn traitor of a dick is already tenting his pants.

“Well, you gotta,” she tells him and reaches around her belly to make a hearty grab for his junk. He gasps despite himself and she smirks at him, smugly, because she can feel how hard he is half a minute after the request which means he is pretty much full of shit.

“I thought you never wanted any man to touch you ever again,” he protests meekly, his voice already raw and dry with wanting her.

“You’re not any man,” she tells him which absurdly makes him twitch in her grip and he’s a stupid idiot and also totally ready to go.

 

He grabs her wrist from where she is palming him, takes the other one too for good measure and brings them over her head, pinning her in place with both his arms raised high and kisses her roughly, biting at her lips to make her open her mouth to him. She squirms, trying to free her arms from his grasp but he holds on tighter.

“Don’t,” he orders her, muffled by her lips and changes to a one-hand hold of her wrists, using his now free arm to navigate her to the nearest free wall to press her against it. It’s not as effective as he would like, seeing that he can’t really grind into her as he would want to because there’s an unfortunate nine-month-baby-belly in the way but he manages to keep her hands pinned and get her off with his free hand against the wall once anyway. Just because he can (quickly and expertly, god fucking damnit) and because she is pissing him off.

 

When that’s done, she’s glaring at him angrily. “Great, now you made me come it’ll take forever with the vaginal intercourse,” she says.

“Oh, babe, please say _vaginal intercourse_ one more time, it really gets me going,” he scoffs but instead of gracing him with an answer, she grabs him by the head and pulls him in to kiss him harshly, ripping at his hair, making him moan despite himself. He doesn’t really know how they make it to the bedroom, only that he has a hard time kissing her and navigating them at the same time, trying to make sure they don’t crash into things but since he has got some experience maneuvering her through obstacle-riddled spaces, they do okay.

 

She pushes him onto the bed, orders him (she really does, she says “Off”, pointing at his clothes) to strip and she does the same. Scott feels humiliated, used and unfathomably turned on once he has done as she bid, sitting there naked, all signs pointing to “I am good to go”. He watches as she shimmies somewhat ungracefully out of her leggings. When she is naked, he realizes that this is the first time he’s seen her like this in about two months. She is stunning, glowing and wonderfully fierce and she’s carrying _their_ son. For a moment, Scott is transfixed by the little dents the baby makes from the inside, moving around in there, hopefully getting ready to turn and Scott is momentarily weirded out by the thought of having sex with her in that state. But then he looks up at her, looks at how she is still glaring at him and knows he wants to fuck that frown right off her beautiful face if it’s the last thing he does. Still, he turns his attention back to her belly, just for a moment, cradles it with both hands and kisses it gently.

 

“I love you,” he tells his son and his mother, although she doesn’t have to know that right now. Instead of making her aware of it, he slithers back on the bed, lying on his back and holding out his arm like he had so many times aeons ago when she had to climb on him for the Goose every other week.

“Do your worst, woman,” he tells her and she straddles him, supported by his arms and hands. No other position is really feasible in her state, except reverse cowgirl but he knows she will want to look at him. She wants to watch him shatter under her and she can have that, he is not too proud to fall apart for her.

 

Even with as little wiggle room she has to move, she still completely blows his mind and it doesn’t really take forever until they’re both there, holding onto each other, staring into the other’s eyes with the same intensity and focus they’ve had on the ice all these years. This had been a competition, in a way, he is well aware of that and they wouldn’t be who they are if they didn’t rise up to the challenge. So neither of them gives in, starring the other down with a single minded focus while they come in and around one another and he wonders through the whole thing if she is aware of how dangerous that is.

After, she lies beside him on the bed and when he tries to leave, she grabs his hand and says “Stay” and so he does.

 

When he wakes up early in the next morning from a string of really weird dreams he has already half forgotten, she isn’t there. So he gets up, naked as the first day because they’re at her place and he doesn’t really have clothes there and climbs back into his boxer briefs and shirt. He can’t be bothered with the jeans and sets out to find her. She is in the kitchen in her fluffy bathrobe, standing with her hands wrapped around a cup of tea, staring out of the window at the first rays of sunshine, looking absolutely breathtaking and he moves without thinking.

 

He comes up from behind her and instead of shooing him away the way she had for weeks on end, she leans back into him and nudges his head with hers as his arms close around her belly. He wants to tell her so many things but he can’t and it kills him a little bit that he never will.

“I’m sorry for being a monster,” she says, earnest and quietly serious this time.

“You’re not,” he reassures her.

“Yes, I am,” she says. “And I appreciate you putting up with me.”

“Are you kidding?” He asks her. “You put up with me being a nightmare for more than twenty years, I think I’m okay dealing with a little bit of pregnant-Tess, kiddo.”

She says nothing, just keeps her head tucked against his.

 

“Do you feel like he could come today?” He wonders aloud. “Think our exercises yesterday helped?”

“I’m not sure,” she answers truthfully. “I think he turned over night, here...” She takes his hand to move it to the underside of her belly and makes him feel for what she believes is their son’s head but it could also easily be his bottom or feet, so he doesn’t know exactly what to tell her either. Sometimes, in moments like these, he still can’t believe this is really happening. That there is really a baby in there, his and hers. _Theirs._

 

On a whim, and because he is tired and emotional and a damn idiot, he kisses her, close to her mouth and tenderly and waits the two more pecks it takes for her to turn her head and kiss him back. And this is the most fucked up thing of all because it’s not covered by any of their exceptions. They are probably not going to have sex to induce labour again and at the very least, they haven’t said it up front, so it’s not an excuse. They are not trying to make a baby right now and Tessa doesn’t seem any more riled up than is normal. No, none of the excuses apply. They are standing in her kitchen kissing softly and have absolutely no valid reason for it. Other than wanting to, obviously, on some level. It’s just an emotional time, he tells himself, it’s normal. He’s not in love with her, not really. Just a little bit, the normal amount that he will always be in love with her. Not enough to risk anything. Not enough to say anything when she breaks away from him finally and gives him a sad smile.

 

“That was the last time we did this,” she tells him. “A farewell to the pregnancy.”

He accepts this for the inevitable end of a dream that it is and hugs her closer to him anyway. She’s not not-pregnant yet, after all.

 

It’s a lie, too. The last time they kiss is right after the nurse places their son on Tessa’s chest (a healthy, perfect, tiny baby boy, black hair on his head already and that Moir-nose exactly as expected). Scott can’t help the kiss, it just comes over him like a tidal wave. She had done so well, she’d been a fucking rockstar. (Even that moment when she screeched “I feel like he’s coming out of my ass!” from the top of her lungs, which is something he will absolutely never let her live down.) And once again he is in awe of her strength, in awe of the way she just took in stride how she teared open giving birth, how she soldiered through eight hours of gruelling labour like it was nothing, nearly broke his hand holding onto him but still made pleasant small talk with the nurses whenever she wasn’t having a contraction. She was iron and steel and completely out-of-this-world amazing.

 

And their son...God, that child was the most perfect, wonderful, wholesome, astounding human he had ever laid eyes on and he loves him as much as he loves Tessa which is really saying something because he has literally just met him and he loves Tessa more than absolutely everything in the world. “I’m so proud of you,” he kept telling her and tells her again before he kisses her. And he can’t _not_ kiss her because she is looking at him like that and she is perfect and did so wonderfully and they have a child together and she gave him his son, _their_ son and yeah, he’s been crying for like an hour, so what?

 

And so when he kisses her, he finds himself wondering what it would be like if they weren’t the weird, inept, compartmentalizing wackos that they are but had actually gotten their shit together at some point and could be right where they are, in some parallel universe (where maybe before the comeback they had actually said what they really, _really_ felt and been together since late 2015 with their stuff figured out), a ring on her finger and that same healthy, wonderful baby, only that they had him out of love. Well, a different kind of love than what they have now, anyway. But alas, here they are and it is what it is.

 

He doesn’t want to stop kissing her and she seems reluctant to stop, too but it’s a stupid fantasy and it can’t last. They have an arrangement, a plan. And now they have a child, a son who is their number one priority and they owe it to him and to themselves to stick to uncomplicated and rational. So after he finally breaks away from her, his heart at once soaring and falling to the ground, he smiles and kisses the top of her head.

“Last time ever, promise,” he tells her. “I’m going to call the folks.”

 

With another peck on the head of his son, he excuses himself to make the phone calls their whole family is waiting for and it warms his heart to hear how happy everyone is when he breaks the news. When his mother cries into his ear drums and says “You’re a Dad now, can you believe it?”, he almost wants to say “No”, because really, he can’t quite wrap his head around it yet.

 

But it’s true. It’s true, he is a Dad now and that’s really all that matters.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eternally grateful for any and all feedback as always! <3  
> Thank you all so much for reading!


	4. Tessa and Scott and baby's first year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! All aboard the angst train! There are some light moments in here too, I promise..but also some angst. But I know you people, you live for it, don't you?!

That damned book. That damned book with his damn baby pictures that had seemed so very cute and non-worrisome at the time. Those damn baby pictures are now on twitter, slapped next to the first picture of their son that someone had snapped when Tessa was out with him on the playground, the similarity too uncanny to ignore. Scott usually did not touch twitter but Tessa had called him all panicky and so he went to check.

 

 **@viiiirtuemoirlove** _tweeted_

@scottmoir are you really trying to tell us this isn’t your baby? #busted

 

 **@leilaneebird** _tweeted_

#virtuemoir have a child this is not a drill #dead #wtf

 

 **@vmtweetersquare** _tweeted_

Wow, I can’t believe Scott whores his way around Montreal while Tessa literally has his baby #smdh #virtuemoir #sodisappointed #imdone

 

After barely a minute of this, Scott shoves the phone away, knowing that it’s just the tip of the iceberg, knowing that the “fandom” (or whatever) is split between people happily ecstatic about their fantasies coming true finally and those that heard the rumours (which were the actual truth) of him having gone on dates and kind of, yes, a little bit sleeping around. The scales being tipped over to the latter when eventually, one of his conquests actually gives an _interview._ That is the worst that happens. Possibly in his entire life up until that point.

 

That is when Tessa stands in his apartment, their three-month old perched on her hip and he can tell she hasn’t slept but cried a lot instead.

“What are we gonna do?” She asks him. “We have to do _something_.”

What she doesn’t say, and what doesn’t need saying, is that she is furious with him for sleeping with someone who would sell them both out for their own fifteen minutes of fame. He knows she is killing herself trying not to say “I told you so”, trying to hold on to her darn attribution theory, where everything that goes wrong is always external and never anybody’s fault when this whole damn mess is so clearly, clearly _his_ fault.

“We should make a statement,” he says, because grovelling won’t get him anywhere, she won’t hear him out right now anyway. Tessa is in fight mode, and Tessa in fight mode wants results, not his apologies.

 

So they do, they make a statement. And it’s in the form of an instagram photo they never wanted to have to share with the greater world. They take it right there on his couch, as soon as Tessa has slapped some make-up on and dressed Milo in a cream jumper Scott had just bought the other day that hadn’t made its way into his dresser in Tessa’s place yet. For all intents and purposes, it’s a family picture, Tessa and Scott sitting shoulder to shoulder, his arms around her holding the baby and smiling bright, as if nothing had ever bothered them. Taking the picture isn’t the hard part, it isn’t even hard to smile, not even with all that’s going on because these are the two most important people in his life and if he gets to hold them both, he is content by default (even if it’s just for a moment before the crap comes rolling in again).

 

No, the _hard_ part is trying to come up with the right words to say and having to read that god-forsaken interview the girl, Terry, had given to the yellow press.

"I met him at a bar,“ she was quoted. "And he didn’t appear to be attached at all. I asked him about Tessa“ (they always ask him about Tessa) „but he said it wasn’t like that between them. I had no idea that he was the baby’s father, he certainly didn’t offer that up to me. But he was very nice and gentle. I’m just sorry for Tessa. I’m really sorry.“

_God fucking dammit._

 

Scott sits down for a while and scribbles something, hoping to be somewhat eloquent and dignified (when really all he wants to write is ‘Fuck all of you, you have no idea what is going on here!’) while Tessa breastfeeds their son, her face impassive and solemn at once. Once she is done and Milo is down for a nap, he hands her what he has written  and by the time she has given it her Tessa-PR-genius-treatment, they have a statement they’re somewhat content with. Tessa copies it over to her Instagram, posts and then they hope for the best.

 

As if he is watching the life of someone else unfold in front of him, peculiarly removed from it all, he reads it again and again alone in his bed hours later when it’s already pitch dark out. It’s her night with Milo and even if they had spent most of their nights together within the last three months, caring for him in tandem, this time, she doesn’t want to be around him. So he’s lying under his covers alone, his thumb stroking his phone screen along the happy lines on their faces and studies their son’s features, looking up at him in the photo with a sharp focus unusual for such a small child but having no idea of the mess that his parents are in at the same time and Scott envies him a little for that. Inevitably, Scott presses the „see more“ section of the caption once again and waits until a wall of text unfolds for him and he re-reads their words for the umpteenth time, hoping to God that they’re still true.

 

“We have asked ourselves for a while if we wanted to address the rampant rumours about our private life and after much deliberation, we decided that, yes, we wish to say a few words. Starting out, we would like to thank everyone for the amazing outpour of love and congratulations regarding the birth of our son Milo. He is a healthy, funny and perfect baby and we are so very happy to have him. Yes, he is our son and we had no intention of ever hiding that fact, however our situation is a special one and we were hoping for a more private handling of that matter. In contrast to how things were communicated via various media outlets, we are very much together in raising our son, even if we remain not being a romantic couple as we have always been forward about.

The decision to have Milo was planned ahead of time with this very family concept in mind. We are best friends, have always been, and the decision to have a child together was made out of platonic love and the hope to raise our son with care and patience and as a team of supportive, loving co-parents, while remaining the best of friends but exploring our romantic relationships outside of each other. We are aware that this isn’t common but we are content and happy with it and we are hoping and are thankful for the continued support of our family, friends and our wonderful fans all over the world. Love, Tessa, Scott and Milo”

 

On a whim, Scott uploads a picture of his own to his Instagram, partly because he wants to reiterate that he is in this too but also because he hopes Tessa will see and maybe know that he’s infinitely sorry. It’s a shot Kate took back when they brought Milo home, Tessa’s hand in his hand and Milo’s on top, the hospital bracelet still wrapped around his chubby little arm saying “Milo Joseph Virtue-Moir”. (So they were really smart to bring NDAs to the hospital because the fact that he had literally given his son his name had stayed firmly under wraps. Evidently, Scott should have brought them to every bar and fucking bedroom as well.) He puts a caption under it that is mainly, purely for Tessa, presses ‘Send’, changes his bio and shuts his notifications off.

 

Tessa’s phone pings with an Instagram notification when she has just put Milo down for hopefully three hours of sleep, which her phone literally never does except for when Scott posts something, so she checks. And there it is. His own say in the matter, that beautiful picture of all their hands together and she likes the post before she even reads the caption. When she does, her heart breaks a little bit and she might not forgive him for being a reckless idiot right this second but she knows she will get there eventually.

“Still the luckiest man in the world. Thank you kiddo, so ready for this new journey with you.” There is an absurd number of likes on the photo already but Tessa doesn’t dare to look into the comment section, instead she scrolls up again and her eyes catch on his bio. “Sometimes I coach figure skating. 25 years and counting with the Virtch.” It says, like always but then: “Father. Grandson, Son, Brother, Uncle. Three-time Olympian. Love sports and music.”

 

Without thinking too hard about it, Tessa texts him and ten minutes later, he is in her bed, holding her while she settles against him.

“Does that mean you forgive me,” he asks her.

“Not yet,” she tells him truthfully, glancing at the crib to make sure they’re not waking Milo with their talking. “You need to be more careful who you’re bringing into this family. Because I know it’s just some bimbo but they become part of this if you get involved with them, even if it’s just for one night. I need you to be smarter about that in the future. _We_ need you to be smarter.”

She can tell he’s not happy hearing that. Judging by the way he draws in a sharp breath and his body tenses, she can practically feel him wanting to argue but he doesn’t, because deep down he knows that past her slightly harsher words, she is right.

 

“No more one night stands, I promise,” he says instead of fighting her and it’s a start. “But to be fair, I was in a weird place when all that happened.”

“Because I was being annoying?” She asks and it’s not even accusatory. She knows she’s been a pretty terrible person to be around in her last month of pregnancy and hadn’t much liked herself then either.

“Because I wanted to sleep with someone other than the women I ended up sleeping with but we don’t do that,” he says and his honesty takes her off guard for a second. She is almost about to say something she can’t take back when he goes on, cutting her off short. “But I’m okay now, I’ve got it sorted. I don’t want to sleep with you anymore, I’m back to normal. You’re just my T now, it’s all okay again, I promise.”

 

Tessa knows she needs to say something, _anything_ and ideally something that doesn’t reveal how much it hurts to hear him say that. But she can’t fault him for that, this is what they agreed on after all, what she had just proclaimed to the whole world. That there is nothing between them and there _isn’t_ , there can’t be. They have Milo now, they don’t have time to figure their shit out on the back of a newborn. They need to be a united front, both sure of what they want. And if Scott doesn’t want her, she doesn’t want him either, period.

So she says “That’s good to hear” and hides her face in his shirt to make sure he can’t see the lie spread across her features. “I’m going to nap for a bit if that’s alright.”

“Of course,” Scott says and rubs her arm gently while pretends to doze off until she actually does.

 

When she wakes up, it’s morning and Scott sits in her nursing plush chair feeding Milo from the bottle and smiling at her.

“It wasn’t your night,” she protests meekly, because obviously Scott hadn’t slept in her stead but he just waves her off.

“You needed the rest,” he says. “And he’s mine too, T.” He looks at her steadily, seriously, with that same darn intensity that she loves so much more than she will ever say and repeats himself for emphasis. “He’s mine too.”

 

The public backlash is something to be reckoned with in the weeks following their statement but it’s manageable. Public opinion is mostly bewilderment and Tessa tells him (because she is spying on their tags to know what’s going on) that their fandom has sort of, almost half-exploded over it, with people literally fighting about if what they said is true and what the hell they’re thinking and what the fuck is going on anyway. But they push this aside, their situation is unusual enough without burdening themselves with the judgement of hundreds upon thousands of strangers on the internet. Heaven knows having a new baby and navigating two careers takes up enough of their headspace as it is.

 

Baby’s first year, outside of public scrutiny, is all together quite wonderful. If you ignore the first four months where neither of them really slept and Scott basically moved in, crashing on Tessa’s pull-out couch on the nights she didn’t request to sleep on his chest (which did happen occasionally, mostly when Milo was sick and she was worried), it all went picture-perfect-easy. Their son is a calm and, for lack of a better term, “chill” baby. He cries when he needs something and not much outside of that and is content watching his parents move about their apartments  with awake, knowing eyes and sleeps a lot when he doesn’t. Scott loves him with a fervour he hadn’t known before (at least not quite in that vein) and no matter if Milo reaches a milestone or just burps funny, he is always bursting at the seams with pride.

 

Tessa, meanwhile, experiences motherhood like a brick to the head. Quite literally, because it hits her as soon as he’s there that this little bundle of human is the most important job she will ever have and more important than anything else until the day she dies and that’s a _lot._ She could watch him day in and day out, just look at his little hands close around nothing or watch his eyelashes curl when he blinks or trace that nose of him with her fingertip. That nose that makes him a spitting image of his father at that age. (She loves that nose more than she can say.) Milo is truly perfect in a world where perfection doesn’t exist and if she could ever love a boy more than Scott Moir, it’s his son.

 

When he is five months old, Tessa has moved on from the bullshit following Scott’s ill-advised one night stand and really, the fact that he’s seeing other people is a non-issue because he is actually not seeing much of anybody outside of their little family unit anyway. He is throwing himself into parenting with the same vigour that he had back when they set out on their great comeback. He goes to work and when he’s not there, he is with her and Milo, changing diapers, cleaning, cooking, making sure she has her space to pump and do her exercises to get back into shape (she wants to be back in the dating pool by the time Milo is a year old at the latest, at least that is what they tell each other); he is just all around supportive.

 

One time, she walks into Milo’s nursery where Scott is changing him, dressed in a towel and stops on the doorway.

“Do you think I can get naked with somebody?” She asks him and flashes him, not even pausing to stop if that could be weird at this point.

Scott coughs over a double-take and then trains his eyes firmly on hers. “Er, sure, yeah. Looks alright.”

“Only alright?” Tessa worries, self-conscious and smoothes the skin of her stomach down. She’s still not all the way back in shape but it surely must be getting there.

“Not alright,” Scott corrects himself but still won’t look at her body fully. “Beautiful. You look beautiful, Tess.”

 

Once upon a time, this might have been a _moment_ but now they have got a grip on themselves, so it’s not. It’s just two friends helping each other out. Just the way it’s supposed to be. (Tessa does _not_ think about how raspy his voice sounded and how dark his eyes got when he looked at her, or how he had licked his lips before he spoke. She had barely even noticed it, really. And she certainly never thinks about it again, ever.)

 

No, they are best friends, just right as they are and they laugh, so much. About every cute little thing Milo does, about the stories from the rink, about the looks Tessa gets at the grocery store when she is out with their son, about their family coming out to meet the baby and tripping all over themselves to hold him because he is the tiniest, most beautiful little creature and everyone falls in love with him on sight.

 

They’re happy, their baby is making them happy. And the co-parenting thing, as expected, is working like a charm, even better than their skating had. They share the same values, the same core beliefs on how to raise a child in this world, they trade off their work, help each other out, stay up nights together when Milo is cranky, even if Scott has to be at the rink at six in the morning or Tessa has a business call at seven. They make it work and they make it work _well._ They don’t really notice how surprised everybody else is that they do because they had never doubted it for a second. But people _are_ surprised. Mostly their mothers who have started calling each other regularly to discuss the latest happenings but Tessa and Scott don’t know about that.

 

Once, when Milo is eleven months old, they have Marie and Patch, Chiddy and his wife and Kevin and his wife and all their kids over for a family dinner and they have no idea how the visitors stand in the elevator going up, talking about how much of a mess their life must be. How miserable, considering how complicated it all is and how very much they expect to find two people completely lost in their bullshit with a baby in tow that did nothing to deserve it when they open the door. But instead with a tragedy, they are met with Tessa and Scott positively beaming. Scott is carrying Milo on his hip and barely ever puts him down. Tessa is grinning from ear to ear, being the perfect gracious host and has everything under control. Her place (where they’re having the dinner) is impeccable, dressed up like a furniture catalogue. Their clothes are sharp and so are Milo’s and he laughs and chuckles and babbles and is a complete delight. Marie-France and Patrice exchange several looks throughout the evening, mostly about how much Kevin and his wife seem to hate the scene that’s unfolding in front of them.

 

Because honestly, it looks like their stupid, idiotic plan is actually working out. And isn’t that the most annoying thing ever? When Milo starts fussing in Scott’s arms, upset about something, Tessa is right there, making cooey noises until he laughs again and Patrick asks something about their new nanny.

“Oh, she’s great,” Tessa says, waving Milo’s tiny hand around, wrapped around her index finger as he studies her. “But she’s a little bit mean to me sometimes.”

“What?” Scott asks her, a concerned look on his face.

“I don’t know, she scares me a little,” Tessa tells him and watches his eyebrows rise further. “She’s a bit judgey.”

“Oh no, babe,” he says and then bends over to kiss her on the temple. “She’s gone! We’ll get another one.”

“No, it’s okay,” she assures him. “It’ll be fine, I just have to get used to her.”

“Just say the word, kiddo,” he says and they smile at each other, completely missing the rounds of looks passed between their guests–looks of utter disbelief and bemusement.

 

“So that was _wild_ ,” says Patrick to the others once they are back on the elevator, half because he has an actual desire to process what he had just witnessed and half because Kevin and his wife have such an unbearable ugly tension between them that the small space feels insufferably small and awkward.

“How can two people be this dense?” Marie wonders out loud.

“Should we tell them?” Patrick asks sincerely but Tessa and Scott’s former coaches shake their head in unison.

“We tried, they won’t listen,” Patrice says.

“I can’t even…,” Patrick starts but can’t finish the sentence.

He’s lost for words. He has known them both forever and he knows, he _knows_ , how they feel about each other and knows that they know too ( _must_ know, on some level at least) but he has never seen them both be so deeply in denial about it and so very reluctant to just open their eyes to it. He feels like a bad friend not saying anything and so he tries, later, calls them both separately but it’s like talking to two equally thick walls. Eventually, he gives up and leaves them be. He only hopes that when they inevitably blow up, it won’t be irreparable. (Or that maybe, maybe they figure it out on their own without too much bloodshed.)

 

After Milo’s first birthday (in Ilderton, surrounded by their entire, huge family), Tessa has her first photoshoot post-baby with a feature to boot and she has a pleasant interview about childcare and foods and recipes and fitness and all that goes over quite smoothly. But of course, it wouldn’t be an interview if there wasn’t a question about Scott and her. Usually, she wouldn’t answer but because she is in a prime mood and her life is really going pretty great right now and for the most part after the first hiccups, the media has been really respectful about their situation, she answers this time.

“You know, it’s really wonderful,” she tells the interviewer with a bright smile. “Scott is a wonderful father and so supportive. For us, this family model really works. We’re each others staunchest supporters and biggest fans and it’s a joy to raise a child with him. We’re still best friends so it’s all going absolutely great.”

 

And the thing is, she really believes that. She believes it with every fiber of her being.

Right up to the moment where she comes back home, finding Scott bouncing their son on his lap and before she even gets to say hello to them tells her: “T, I think I found _the girl._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your feedback!! I am aware this chapter was slightly filler/a bit of a mess but I wanted you to have it anyway...I will edit it more somewhere down the line but I wanted to move the story along. I hope you like it a little bit anyway :) Thank you!!
> 
> PS: Also sorry for the cliff-hanger!


	5. Tessa and Scott and Judith, Mike and a fistfight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: More angst! Less editing (it's late, I will get on that tomorrow, just act like I didn't make any mistakes, okay?)! New SOs! Finally a set Chapter-Limit! WEEE!
> 
> Also please remember: It has to get worse before it get's better.

Scott falls in love completely on purpose. Really, he facilitates it with a passion. Also with a clear announcement of his plan beforehand. “I’m going to fall in love with someone,” he says, toasting to his buddy’s at the bar and it’s less hopeful and enthusiastic but more resolved and grimly determined. He’s been home for three days and he’s in a shitty mood and he misses his son and it’s the off-season so he also misses skating and he can’t get all the stress and frustration out the way he needs. (And the last time he has skated with Tessa was almost two years ago and he missed that more than he could possibly say. For a year it has felt like someone had taken one of his legs and he’s been a skating cripple, only half his body on the ice with him. And he misses Tessa, as a person, even if it’s just been three days and she’ll come down for Milo’s birthday a day later. To hell with on-ice, he misses her off of it, he misses her everywhere.)

 

His friends do a great job of lifting his spirits though, in their own way, which isn’t the JF-way he’s gotten so used to, that therapeutic-psychological-really-look-into-your-soul-and-try-to-understand-your-feelings-kind of way but the this-is-obviously-your-problem-and-here’s-what-you’re-gonna-do-about-it way. And that in his case is: “Dude, you haven’t had sex in a year, you practically live with your Baby Mama who you’ve known for twenty-five years (who you’ve been ridiculously in love with for about eight of those years, but that’s not said explicitly), it’s time you got out there and actually get to the point of your great plan where you have your great, big, uncomplicated romance instead of just sitting at home, pining for a woman you have a de facto relationship with that neither of you is willing to lift to some tangible romantic level.”

To be fair, they don’t put it quite this eloquently because it’s pretty late and they’re pretty drunk but that is what Scott takes “You just need to get laid, man” to mean.

 

So he declares that he will, he’ll get laid and because he has promised Tessa no more one-night-stands, he’ll find himself a girlfriend and that’s exactly what he sets out to do. And he thinks with the universally acknowledged weirdness of his situation (acknowledged thusly by all those people who have no idea how _great_ it works!), it should take longer to find someone to be okay with it, but it doesn’t.

 

He meets Judith in the park out on a stroll with Milo just a few weeks later. She is walking a dog and is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in real life (apart from Tess) and it takes his breath for a second. It takes him another to deliberate if he wants to keep his head down or do something about it. She shoots him a glance, slight recognition passing across her features and he’s ready to call it right there (because apparently outside of questionable skating groupies, women aren’t really turned on by a man who has built his entire life around another women who’s always going to be in the picture––who would have thought that his relationship with Tessa would make him essentially undateable these days? Except apparently all of his friends and his entire family).

But then she smiles at him and he thinks he owes it to himself, his libido and the promise he’s made to his buddies to at least find out if she could be interested or is just simply being Canadian.

 

“Hi,” he says, which is a good start as any.

“Hey,” she greets, smiling brightly.

“My son really likes dogs, would it be okay, if he said hello real quick?” Scott says, on a whim because that’s a pretty solid reason to talk to her and it’s also pretty smart thinking on his part and he’s a little proud of himself.

“Oh sure,” she says and looks down at the shaggy brown Collie who’s more interested in her shoes than the scene unfolding around him. “He’s not mine though, I’m just dog-sitting. I could never take care of a living creature full-time.”

 

Scott nods at this. Fair enough. He’s looking for a girlfriend, not a mother for Milo (he already has the best one), so that’s not a deal breaker yet.

“You’re that figure skater,” she says. And that might be the deal breaker for her. “The one with the baby with his skating partner.”

“I’m Scott,” he says and has to smile because there’s something about her and he likes how there was no malice in her voice, no judgement, just stating facts. “That’s Milo.”

“Hi, Milo,” she says, bending her head down to his son who is about as uninterested in what’s going on as her borrowed dog. “I’m Judith.”

“Hi, Judith,” Scott says and holds out his hand, “nice to meet you.”

“You too,” she smiles, shakes his hand, watches the dog and the baby be completely apathetic to each other and then says: “Milo doesn’t really like dogs, does he?”

“Doesn’t care for them at all,” Scott admits and they both laugh.

When about five minutes later he asks her to go out with him for coffee, she says yes.

 

Surprisingly, Judith doesn’t have a problem with his situation at all and she reminds her a lot of Kaitlyn in this regard. She is confident and self-assured (which is a very sexy combination) and she accepts what he tells her about how things are with Tess and how they’re not and she laughs easily at his jokes and doesn’t care too much for his past but very much about the Leafs, which is an added bonus. Also, she only looks a little bit like Tessa which helps a lot.

 

So he dates her, two or three times before he tells Tess that he thinks he’s met _the girl._ Of course that makes it sound like he means _the One_ , which he doesn’t but Tess certainly doesn’t have to know that because she has no interest in doing anything about the fact that that’s _her_ , so it is what it is. Tessa smiles at him as he says it but he knows her long enough to know when she is pretending.

“Everything okay?” He asks her press-conference face and gets a breezy interview-nod for his troubles.

“Of course,” she says. “That’s wonderful. Tell me all about her.”

Another little piece of Scott dies that moment but he tries to ignore it and flash her his own press-conference smile. A part of him had hoped that maybe this would rattle her to come out with what she really feels about him ––if she feels about him how he feels about her, that is–– but maybe she really doesn’t and...it’s no use. He’s going in circles. This isn’t happening. If it hasn’t in twenty-five years, maybe it’s really never gonna happen. He just needs to finally accept it and move on.

 

Instead of saying any of that out loud, he says: “Her name is Judith. She’s in marketing. She’s hilarious, you’ll love her.” (This is a lie. Technically, Tessa could love her but she won’t.)

“Um,” Tessa starts and then clears her throat, looking away and then back at him again and there’s steel behind her eyes, he can see her armour as it goes up in real time. “So when did you meet? Have you been..out with her yet?”

“A couple of times, yeah,” he answers, fastening some of his own guards. “Coffee and a dinner and lunch. Today, actually.”

“Oh, how nice,” Tessa smiles. “But she’s...special? Different from the rest?”

“Feels like it, yeah,” he says and then there’s a pause and a crack somewhere between them. It’s not big and he won’t let it get bigger but it’s there and they haven’t been here in such a long time, he doesn’t remember how he dealt with it back in the days. It makes him sick to his stomach. “So, when are you getting back out there?” He finally asks, just to say something.

“Eventually,” she answers. “Kat has been trying to set me up with this guy forever, maybe I’ll give it a shot.”

Scott nearly breaks his face trying to keep his jaw from snapping because he knows that’s his jealousy-tell and she knows it, too. So he breathes through it, like he would breathe through pain in his joints when out on the ice (which this doesn’t feel unsimilar to) and smiles encouragingly instead.

“Go for it, T,” he says. “Go get some!”

Yeah, he needs to really fall in love with Judith now.

 

For the first time in years, Scott has to balance a relationship outside of _the_ relationship of his life again, and what’s more, he needs to balance it with coaching and being a Dad. Somewhat unexpectedly, though, it’s easier than he thought it would be and that’s a hundred percent because Judith is amazing. She’s so easy going about all of it, totally fine being alone some nights, totally okay when he cancels last minute when something with Milo comes up and so appreciative of the time they do get to spend together. Which makes him want to spend time with her all the time. And also, it’s fun getting to know someone, learning about her past and her family and what makes her tick.

 

Sleeping with her, that too. Even if there’s a distant sense of hollowness to it that he tries his best to block out, this certain feeling of a chase there that she isn’t the reward for. Still, in the great scheme of things, that minor hiccup doesn’t matter though. Especially not as he rediscovers how much he loves being in a romantic relationship, how much he loves waking up and seeing someone’s face next to him, the shared pillow- and kitchen-counter talk, her lithe body curled around his as they watch a movie, her easy conversation when they’re out at a restaurant, watching a Leafs game with her roaring beside him.

 

Twice he calls her Tessa by accident (and thankfully neither of those instances involve either of them being naked, thank God) but Judith doesn’t mind that either. When he apologizes slightly over-dramatic after the second time it happens, she just laughs at him and says “You’ve spent your whole life with her, it’s a reflex. Get out of your head, Scott, I’m not worried.” She’s a phenomenal woman and for the first time in eight years, he can picture a future where he doesn’t die having unhappily been in love with Tessa for the rest of his life. Maybe he can stay with Judith, make that work. Yeah, that wouldn’t be so bad, wouldn’t be bad at all.

 

Tessa meets Mike when Scott and Judith have been going steady for six months. Sleeping with him feels like retaliation but it’s a hollow victory because Scott doesn’t seem to even care. But because Mike is sweet, treats her well and is tall, charming and really handsome, Tessa keeps seeing him and eventually, they make it exclusive. It’s not much of a task to fit him into her life. Since she works mostly from home, he arranges it so that he can have slightly longer lunch breaks sometimes to come see her and takes her away on a trip to his family’s cabin in the woods outside Vancouver after barely a month and it’s fun and exciting and feels to a certain degree like the romance she was supposed to have somewhere down the line.

Like a normal person would: Meet someone, like them enough to see them more than a handful of times, get to know them better, take a romantic trip and sip wine and philosophy about everything and nothing and start a romantic relationship. Not meet someone when you’re six years old, fall in love with them, never (well, sometimes) act on it, have a twenty year competitive skating career, win three Olympic Gold medals, have a baby together and then...yeah...and then, _nothing._

 

Mike really makes an effort to see her and to romance her and he’s emotionally stable, calm, collected and he’s actually so much alike her, sometimes she feels like she is talking to herself when she talks to him. It’s easy, it’s uncomplicated, just like she wanted. He’s not particularly interested in her past skating career, being more of a literary, intellectual guy than a sports guy (though his body doesn’t look it, holy shit!) and the arrangement she and Scott have is weird to him for all of two hours until he has processed it. Also he himself has children with his ex-wife so the concept of co-parenting is his daily life and he is a  hundred percent supportive and understanding. She likes him a lot. She doesn’t _love_ him but she has accepted the fact that that’ll always be Scott for her, the measuring stick, and that she could travel to the end of the earth and not find anybody who she feels about as she feels for him. But it’s fine. She can be happy liking someone a lot. It’s enough and that’s good and it’s healthy and she embraces it.

 

Especially since Mike is so good with Milo. He meets him pretty early on because he visits Tessa at home where she spends most of her time with her son and he takes to her new boyfriend immediately. Mike says he will only introduce Tess to his girls when they are really certain they’re in it for the long run and Tessa understands. Thinking of long runs was never really her thing (with that one exception) and so she is fine with it. They commit to things on a day to day basis and that works.

 

They also commit to a trip three months into the relationship that Scott suggested, to get their Montreal friend circle together. Originally, they ask more people but by the end of it it’s Marie, Patch, the Chans, Kevin and Trish, Scott and Judith and Mike and her, plus the children (minus Mike’s, because they aren’t there yet). It’s just for a long weekend and it’s just to Whistler but it’s a big thing to get everyone there all the same.

 

The first night is uneventful, except for that moment when Scott knocks at Tessa’s door, Milo on his arm, acknowledging Mike with barely a nod, and asks her if they want to have Milo in their room that night.

“It’s just, you know, ‘cause Judith has been gone all week and we kinda wanna...I don’t want Milo there for that, if that’s alright,” he says and Tessa feels like she doesn’t even know him. And it’s not like their relationship has greatly deteriorated or anything, they’re still okay, still friends and everything, but it’s not what it used to be when Milo was a baby. It’s what it used to be when they were starting out in Canton, they were in it together but at times they were a million miles apart (and then at others, she would catch herself stare at him and wish she had a time machine to go back..to where, she doesn’t even know, probably onto some ice rink somewhere, back when at least at some place, she knew what to do with him).

 

“Yeah, sure, that’s fine,” she says and takes Milo from his arms. The poor boy is super sleepy, can barely keep his eyes open but still, when Mike comes into focus for him, he reaches out his arms lazily and Tessa can’t help but coo because how adorable is that?

“Oh, you want Mike?” She asks her son and passes him right over. “You want your best friend? Huh? Yeah, he’s your best friend, isn’t he? Isn’t he?”

“Um, yeah, thanks guys,” Scott says and by the tone of his voice Tessa knows not to look at him. “See you in the morning.”

Tessa falls asleep to the muffled sound of a woman’s sex noises coming from the other room, praying to God that Mike won’t hear her crying.

 

Scott hates Mike, _hates_ him. Hates that he’s tall, hates that he’s high society and intellectual and good-looking, hates that he went to such a great school and is so well read and has a well-founded opinion on anything and most of all that he and Tessa...well, that whole thing. But when he’s about ready to kill him is when he’s holding Milo, standing there next to Tessa while she fusses over their child (THEIRS, his and hers) with another man looking like a family. Mike’s not Milo’s family. _He_ is. Tessa is. Mike is not. Judith isn’t either, so why should Mike?

 

Scott is livid, anger boiling low under his surface, and it’s a good thing Judith likes it a little impersonal and raw sometimes because he does not have it in him to be overly gentle with her that night. She thinks he’s being passionate while he knows he is barely holding on to his composure. He could cry hovering above her and the only thing that’s keeping him from it are her hands on him, demanding he be focused. When they’re done, he doesn’t speak. They clean up, he kisses her on the temple and then turns his back to her and tries to fall asleep just so he can tap out of reality for a bit.

 

The next day is better. The cabin is nice and spacious so he can avoid Mike pretty well for the most part, the weather is great and the snow sparkling. It’s great to be out with the guys and he can blow off some steam out in the snow. Marie-France, Trish and Tessa are taking the kids to a skating lesson but Scott can’t take that today, so he opts to go skateboarding with the rest of the gang. Judith blows them all out of the park and one time, Kevin walks over and pats him on the shoulder heartily.

“Nicely done, man,” he says congratulatory. “She’s a banger. Like, seriously. She’s the hottest one yet.”

Scott loves the guy but right now, he just wants to punch him. But he doesn’t, he merely smiles and says: “Yeah, she’s great” and let’s it go.

Had he known then what Kevin would end up doing that night...well, he might’ve just taken that punch.

 

It starts innocently enough. Once the kids are all in bed and the adults have gathered around a table full of cheese fondue, they make lovely, good-natured conversation over wine and dinner. Only that there is a lot of wine and with a room full of busy parents, nobody can really hold their liquor anymore, least of all, apparently, Kevin. Scott doesn’t even know how the conversation turns to kids but apparently, with parents, that’s what happens and for some reason, at a certain point, Kevin just goes off.

 

“No, but like seriously, you two are just so smug,” he drawles and it still sounds like he’s being funny but there’s an edge to it Scott knows all too well, it’s the one that has started numerous bar fights, none of them pretty, none of them to Kevin’s advantage. And just as he thinks that, Kevin snaps over to the dark side like a gunshot. “You come here with your rich, hot new lovers being all high and mighty about how great it is to have a kid together and not fuck each other. So fucking what, Trish and I haven’t fucked in years. Fucking years, at least not each-freakin-other. So you can get off your high horse. You’re not some great inventors of the new family, you’re just so fucked up that you can’t see what a fucking terrible idea this was.”

 

“Kevin,” Scott warns, sitting up straighter at the table, gauging how much time it would take to get up, pass Trish who is dying in the seat next to him and knock his friend right from his seat at the table. Opposite of him, Tessa has gone red, Mike looks like a fish on water while Marie-France and Patch sit there open-mouthed and shocked. Judith tries to take Scott’s hand but he motions her to please not touch him right now. “Kevin, I’d think long and hard about what you’re gonna say next.”

 

“No,” Kevin snaps, his voice raised and Scott would really like to retrace the conversation to figure out how on earth they got here but Kevin just rages on. “No, I mean it. What are you gonna tell Milo one day, huh? When he’s old enough to understand ––or better, not understand what is going on here? Because, newsflash, nobody understands it, not a single fucking soul at this table. Go ahead, ask them!”

Kevin’s challenge remains unmet but Scott is already so angry, he barely registers it.

“Kevin,” he repeats tightly.

 

“Scott,” his friend parrots his tone and is unstoppable. “What will you tell your son? That you didn’t love his mother enough to fucking at least try? To just fucking try to not be freaks? Is this your life, honestly? You just fuck other people because for some reason you don’t wanna fuck each other and that makes you better than everybody? How can you have a child with her? How can you put that on a baby that did nothing to deserve it to bring him into your whole insane mess with each other? How do you expect to make this work when you don’t even love each other?”

 

“You think we don’t love each other?” Scott explodes, he’s not yelling yet but only barely and he’s just so staying on his seat, shooting daggers at Kevin and glaring at him, making him pay and really, he hasn’t been this furious in years, probably not since Marina. “You know and the whole fucking world knows that I have loved this women for twenty-seven years, Kevin. That is nearly my whole life. I know everything there is to know about her, I know the mood she’s in when she wakes up in the morning, I know not to talk to her before eleven am before she’s had at least two cups of coffee. I know that she is honest and driven and hardworking, she’s never taken a shortcut in her life, she has worked harder for everything she has than any of you could ever think to imagine. I know that we have the same values, the same taste, we have the same sense of humour, we grew up the same, my family is her family and hers is mine. I know that if she is ever paralyzed from the neck down, she would like me to unplug her –– and I will, even if it would _kill_ me. I know her position on just about everything and I’m on board. I love everything she does, in every aspect of her life, she is the most unbelievable woman I’ve ever met, I love everything about her, everything! So you tell me Kevin, what better woman could I have picked to be the mother of my child? At least we’re not sitting here resenting each other like you and Trish do because we got into something head over feet after I fucking got her pregnant at the town carnival behind a fucking dumpster!”

 

“You wanna go, let’s go!” Kevin yells and the two of them are at each other’s throats in seconds. By the time Patrick and Patrice have picked them apart, Scott has a split lip, Kevin two black eyes and every child in the cabin is crying in their bed. Chiddy maneuvers Scott to the side, away from Kevin and as he’s being pummeled out of another clear path at his asshole friend, Scott catches two glimpses he could’ve gone without. One at Judith, as she sits in her chair, beautiful and poised and unmoving, looking at him like she is seeing him for the first time ever and one at Tessa as she is standing up to undoubtedly calm down Milo. Her cheeks are flush, her mascara down in streaks on them. He can’t read her face right, can’t see through the sheen of fury that is still coursing through him but she’s looking at him like she’d heard him. Maybe she’s heard him.

 

Their group vacation, meanwhile, doesn’t survive this night. Neither does Kevin and Trish’s marriage.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so overwhelmed by your kind kind words to every chapter, I feel the love and it makes me churn out those chapters this much faster. 
> 
> Scott's epic monologue is 70% of the big monologue from "Friends with Kids" and 30% stuff that Scott said about Tessa (because he can). It's just a really good movie, trust me :)
> 
> Thank you all so much again, any and all feedback (or cursing out for the pain) is wholeheartedly appreciated <3


	6. Tessa and Scott and how everything people said was right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I told you it had to get worse before it can get better? We hadn't been at worse then yet.
> 
> I am so grateful for all your sweet and kind responses, they each mean the world to me, I am so happy this story is so well received!  
> Thank you a million times!!

Tessa and Scott, apart from each other and without ever having even exchanged a glance about it, both get in their respective cars with their respective significant others the day after the ski-trip implodes and think that by the time they leave that car, they’re gonna be single again. Miraculously, neither of them is.

 

Mike doesn’t say a word about it at all, just holds Tessa’s hand over the stick and tells her he’s sorry for how the night went. Tessa is so dumbfounded by that, that she says something herself because she doesn’t trust the peace, doesn’t trust that she could finally have met someone willing to fully accept and embrace the whole world of confusion that is her and Scott and feels still somewhat guilty saying it (because Milo is strapped into the seat in the back and Kevin had worried her about her son wondering one day, why their parents didn’t love each other enough to be together).

“He doesn’t love me in that way,” she says anyway, pretty much entirely unprompted. “Just...you need to know that. When he says he loves me, he doesn’t mean that he _loves_ me.”

“I know, babe,” Mike says and smiles warmly at her and she is completely convinced he really believes that. So maybe it’s about time that she believe it, too.

 

Judith is another story. But unlike ninety percent of Scott’s exes, she _doesn’t_ blow up about him giving a three minute speech detailing how much he loves Tessa. She’s calm in the car, talking easily and taking the time to hear him out when he speaks.

“So, you’re not in love with Tessa?” She asks merely and there is no inflection in her tone, only openness and bone-deep ease.

“No,” he says, because he isn’t, not really (just the normal amount that he will always be in love with her).

“Were you ever in love with her?” She asks him.

“No,” and this is where he lies. “It’s not like that with us.”

“Well, how did Milo come about?” She asks again and it’s not a challenge, it’s just her trying to get the full picture. More actual curiosity than jealousy or accusation.

“Traditionally,” Scott says and signals to change lanes, avoiding a sideway glance so as to not see her reaction.

 

“And sleeping with her didn’t change how you felt about her?” Judith asks.

“No. I mean...I don’t know,” he says, trying to be more honest while not catapulting himself ass first out of her life. “It was like...it was like on the _ice._ ” Yes, this is good, at least this he knows how to put in vague enough terms for no one to be any the wiser but for him to still be honest. “You know, when we skated together, we made it real. On-ice, I loved her, I was in love with her and...it wasn’t method acting or like, _pretending_ but it was acting a certain way. I was acting like I was in love with her. And when we tried for a kid, it was the same thing. We were...dancing. It wasn’t real, not like this is.” So he’s back to lying again. But she really doesn’t have to know that, does she? It has no bearing on their relationship, so why should it even matter? So what if Tessa is the love of his life? He’s not with her now, is she? He’s with Judith and she has no idea. She doesn’t seem to doubt him at all.

 

All she does is smile at him kindly and squeeze his hand. “I trust you, Scott. I believe you and I’m not going anywhere if you don’t want me to. But just do something for me, okay?”

“Anything,” he tells her and takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at her intently.

“When you have a minute, before you do anything you’ll regret for the rest of your life, sit down with yourself and figure out how you got here.”

 

“What do you mean?” He asks.

“I mean, why are you in this precise situation, why do you have a baby with your best friend but you are in a relationship with me.”

“Because you’re amazing,” he tells her sincerely.

“But do you want me?” She asks him. “Do you really want _me_?”

“Yes,” he says, steadfast and almost entirely certain. “Yes, I do. And look, I wasn’t going to say this right now because I didn’t want it to seem like I am just trying to get you to forget about last night but...I got you a key to my apartment. I’d have given it to you tonight anyway if Kevin hadn’t gone insane and I...I would’ve asked you if you wanted to move in with me. So...there’s that.”

“Oh my God,” she sounds happy, very happy. He likes that. “Geez, Scott, yeah. Yeah, let’s do it.”

“Awesome,” he says and grins and grins. This is nice, isn’t it? He’s moving forward, he’s moving on. He’ll be okay.

 

Tessa-and-Scott, meanwhile don’t talk to each other about that night or his speech at all. She just calls him two days later and invites him to her birthday. She says she’s booked a nice private room in one of their favourite spots in Montreal and wants him to come. Of course he accepts, it’s Tessa, after all. When she asks if he’ll bring Judith, he thinks nothing of it. And his girlfriend is out of town again for a client of her agency anyway (preparing a brand relaunch, she’s been talking about little else in the past few weeks, always working that one), so it’ll be just him coming around.

“Okay,” Tessa says, sounding tinny over the speaker. “Okay.”

“Are you alright, T?” He asks because her voice is suddenly clearly weird and funny-sounding beyond the trepidations of technology, kind of dazed, like she’s not really there anymore.

“Yeah, I just…,” she begins. “I just realised something. I gotta go, Scott. See you Saturday.” And with that, the line is dead.

 

On Saturday, Scott is really pleased with himself for the gift he put together for her and can’t wait for her to see it, thinking that she’ll love it, that it’s the right message to send and that she’ll appreciate it so much, especially because he put so much of his own work into it (and truthfully, he’s not just been working on it since she called to invite him but _way_ before that). So when he gets there and realises he is the first person to arrive (which almost never happens), he’s glad because that means she’ll get to unwrap his present in private and he’ll have her joy all to himself.

She’s beautiful welcoming him, dressed in a navy cocktail dress with her back exposed and she looks exactly like she had at her twenty-fifth birthday ten years ago, radiant and all grace. He crosses the cavernous private room to hug her and kiss her on the cheek and she beams up at him, taking his gift but putting it away almost immediately.

 

“I can’t believe, I’m actually the first one here,” he says and he’s quite giddy. “Go on, open your present.”

“Can we sit down and have a drink first?” She asks and he shrugs, because why not.

“Where’s Milo?” He wonders once she’s poured them generous glasses of red wine from a bottle from the table.

“With Marie and Patch,” she replies.

“Oh, so they’re not coming?”

“No,” Tessa says. “They’re not. No one’s coming, actually. I...I didn’t ask anyone else.”

 

Oh.

 

_Oh._

 

“But what about Mike?” Scott asks dimly, a million things about this moment in time hitting him at once that he is ill-equipped at best to process right now. Is it happening? Is this _it_?

“He wanted me to meet his kids tonight,” Tessa says and studies the two rings on her left middle finger until she looks up, finds his eyes and scares him to death. “I broke up with him.”

 

Scott waits. And when he doesn’t say anything, she continues, her voice shaky but eyes determined. “I...I only wanted to be with you tonight. Not anybody else. I want, I want just you and Milo. I want my family, Scott. I want _our_ family. I want...us.” And if Scott had been unsure if it was really happening, she follows that up with a broken-voiced, almost-crying and completely vulnerable: “I’m so in love with you I don’t really know what to do.”

 

“Tessa,” is all he can say for a while and not much else is really happening in his head. They are staring at each other, having a conversation he can’t follow and all he feels is a coil in his stomach, flaring electricity that travels up and closes his throat, gripping him tight. With panic. She looks at him, waiting, expecting something, so beautiful. So terrifying. Time stretches out between them, eternity, a whole life flashing between their eyes. A life he can almost touch now. And the seconds tick by.

 

“Tess, she’s moving in with me,” he blurts out, finally. _Of all the things._

 

Of _all_ the things he could have said, he’s said this. He doesn’t even fully understand why. He has no grip on why he’s so frightened, only knows that he is, that the scope of what he feels for her in this moment is overwhelming. It’s bigger than he is, bigger than his life, bigger than the _world_ and all he wants to do is run, run, run. With her it’s existential, it’s dreadful, it’s like breathing and falling and dying.

 

And with Jess it was wild, with Cassandra it was convenient, with Kaitlyn it was mature, with Judith, it’s simple. With Tessa it’s his whole life up in the air. And he can’t. He simply can’t. They never went here, she had never said _this_ to him before, not in his adult life at least and right now that she has, he understands why _he_ hadn’t, ever. Even if he had wanted to, even if he had killed himself longing for her and pining and suffering, trying to have her. Now that all he would need to say is yes, he says “She’s moving in with me”.

 

Tessa just stares at him, steady as she has always been, a pool of outward calm with a storm behind her eyes she won’t let out. She is so together and he hates her a little bit for it. And he loves her, he loves her so much he can barely breathe. But he can’t say the words, he can’t do anything but be pitifully, cowardly afraid. He can’t. He can’t and he wants to die, right this moment. Drop to the ground and stop existing. Because he can already see the hurt, hear the crack, see the divide opening up. The earth shatters between them, opening to a pit at the first tear that rolls down her cheek.

 

“After everything?” She whispers, a broken, naked, terrible thing. “After everything you said at the cabin, after… How do you not love me?”

“I love you,” he says, immediately, with the little voice he has left.

“Just not enough,” she mutters and then she sobs, just for a moment and it almost sounds like a laugh, like she can’t believe she could be this stupid. It’s just a second before she reins herself in again but it feels like a lifetime. And when he thought he wanted to die before and that the pain had been unbearable, now he knows he knew nothing of pain. He knew nothing at all.

 

 _Just say it, goddamn it, say it,_ he tells himself. And he’s kicking and screaming inside, watching her put herself back together, step back into her armour, getting away from him already. _Just say the words, you fucking idiot._ But he can’t, there’s nothing. He opens his mouth, willing himself to say something, say _anything._ Nothing comes out. He’s scarcely even breathing. He watches her get up, stuck to his seat, he can’t move, he can’t think. It’s like he’s leaving his body, as if something has locked him in place and he’s watching himself from up high. He doesn’t know this person. He knows nothing. Nothing.

 

Slowly, Tessa shakes her head at him, watery eyes turning to stone and he can see the moment it changes, pinpoint the moment she starts to look at him like he’s a stranger. Like she never even knew him, like the last twenty-five years had never happened.

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says. And then she leaves and she doesn’t look back.

 

Scott has no idea how long he sits there, paralyzed, in that fucking cellar, his gift for her sitting wrapped and ready on the table. It could be an hour, it could be a year, it could be all the time it takes for him to starve and rot and turn to dust. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore. And it’s just when a waitress gets down to check on him that he somewhat comes back to himself, feeling like his entire chest his an open wound, like someone had ripped into his flesh, torn his ribcage apart and scratched open his insides with a rusty knife. It’s self-loathing, pure and distilled and worse than he’s ever felt it.

 

“Can I help you, sir?” The waitress says, obviously wondering why the room booked for the birthday party feels like a graveyard.

“No,” he says and he sounds to himself like another person. “I was...just leaving.”

 

He doesn’t know how he gets home, doesn’t know how he makes it through the night only that a bottle of whiskey is involved but even that doesn’t get him to pick up the phone and call her or...like...take the damn elevator and actually go to her. Go to her and save his goddamn life.

 

The next three days pass by in a fog. He calls in sick at work (which he never does) and practically seals himself in his condo, terrified of walking into her, trying and failing to process his behavior and to find a way forward when every little thing he can think of seems impossible. He can’t make it right because he doesn’t know where to start and doesn’t know what to do but he also can’t go back to normal because his whole life has tilted sideways and he can’t go back to the way it was before because that’s suddenly completely in ruins. And when he thinks about Milo, he has to hold on to the edge of his couch to make sure he doesn’t jump out the window.

 

It’s a mess, it’s all such a mess. He has no idea what to do. So he winds up doing absolutely nothing. Judith gets back from her trip and he acts like all is well. He doesn’t know how he does it but it’s happening and again it feels like someone else is living his life and he’s just watching. He goes back to work and nobody would ever know anything is off. Days pass. The next time he sees Tessa, he is knocked back into his body for the first second he sees her face but she merely opens the door to him, stone-faced and hands him his son, saying goodbye to him but not to his father. Then he’s back to walking in bubble wrap, unfeeling, numb. Judith moves in and it’s easy and uncomplicated. Weeks pass. He laughs with his buddies, is stern with his skating teams, gets mad at people in traffic, moans and sighs in bed with Judith. He never cries. And he feels nothing.

 

It’ll be six months until JF tells him that he’s actually been in shock for the better part of the last half year and they only reach that conclusion then because Scott finally decides it’s gotten bad enough for him to open up about the whole messy, fucked-up situation.

 

When the dam breaks, it’s for no apparent reason, there is no inciting incident. Life is going. Not particularly bad but also not particularly good, it’s just going. But it’s time. Because Scott starts feeling like Tessa, like he has no idea who Scott even is. The worst thing is, and he verbalizes that for the first time in this session, is that he is going through the motions in every aspect of his life and it’s grating at him. He has hollowed himself out, he is not passionate anymore, he doesn’t _go_ for things, he just does them. He’s an automaton, walking from A to B and finding no joy in the way or the destination. He’s...empty. He isn’t feeling things the way he used to. He doesn’t know who he is anymore. The only thing that’s solid is his love for Milo and how he tries to be the best father he can, but even that is shamefully hard under the circumstances. Especially because now Tessa treats him like an _acquaintance._ And the fact that she has since moved to the other end of the town.

 

“How did you feel when Tessa told you she was moving away?” JF asks and Scott pauses, trying not to wince as he remembers the moment she stood in his doorway (not further in, always the doorway now) and declared that she had found a house and that she was going to move and take Milo with her but that he can have him every other week and see him whenever he wants (and that she knew he might not like it, it was something she had to do and if she mattered to him _at all_ , he would let her go.)

“I was angry,” he says. “But mostly devastated. Though I don’t think I really knew I was at the time. I was...shut off, I felt like I was in standby-mode, still am. Like I’m paused.”

“Do you want to un-pause?” And it sounds like a simple question but it isn’t.

“I think I should,” Scott says after deliberating this for a while. “But I don’t think I want to. It’s like...it’s like I’ve had this scream lodged in my throat for six months now and I’m afraid that if I start, I’ll never stop.”

“Are you worried about your mental well-being?” A slightly tougher sounding question but way simpler to answer.

“I worry that if I start feeling what I’m keeping down, I will be,” Scott says. “It’s too much. But I can’t keep doing _this_ either.”

“Do you regret the decisions you made regarding your arrangement with Tess?” JF asks and Scott watches JF watch his reaction, careful like a hawk but truthfully, Scott would like to see his own reaction too, because he can’t seem to connect with it.

 

“I don’t regret Milo,” he says. He could _never_ regret his son. “I regret...I regret…” No. There’s no words yet. Not a single one. “I can’t answer that. I can’t feel anything when it comes to Tessa. It’s like a wound, like a, a...phantom limb. When I think of her it’s a big red blur in my brain. I can’t look at her, I can’t...I can’t look in the mirror. That’s not making any sense, I’m sorry.”

“It makes a lot of sense, Scott,” JF says, voice even and eyes empathetic. “Let’s take a step back and unpack this. But, Scott...this won’t be a quick fix. This’ll take a while.”

Scott’s fine with it. Whatever it takes.

 

After the hour is done, JF gives Scott a hug and a pat on the back and Scott can tell the other man is worried about him. Right before he leaves, JF holds him back, some second-hand pain and personal, non-professional sympathy written on his face and they are not therapist and client anymore, they’re old friends now.

“Maybe if I could sit down with the two of you,” JF starts. “Talk things out. You’ve been through so much, it’s not unthinkable you can make it through _this._ ”

“Maybe,” Scott echoes and it would be nice if he could access even a shred of that optimism. “But I’m afraid she can’t stand the sight of me right now and it doesn’t feel like that is going to change any time soon.”

 

On the other end of town, Tessa is being a _mother._ That is what she thinks about. Work and childcare. That’s what she’s good at, that’s what makes her happy. Scott...well, Scott is an open wound and by now she has accepted that this might never change, also that it _can’t_ really change because as Milo is nearing two, he looks more like his Dad by the day.

 

So even without the weekly trade-offs when seeing her ex-best friend and always-love of her life brings the cuts and bruises back, simply seeing her own son does the job most days. It’s agony when she isn’t busy enough to block it out and so she makes sure she never really has time to think. Really, she goes a bit overboard with all the projects, both the childcare-related ones (she’s building him a jungle gym, with her own two hands!) and with her business-related ones as well (she’s doing a sportswear collection, creating a perfume, writing a kids book, a book! Her!) and sees her friends a lot and never talks about Scott. She doesn’t want to entertain even the notion of talking about him. Mostly because she thinks she’ll die if she gets another “I told you so”-look from anybody. Yes, everything people had said was right. They are fucked up, they were being reckless and thoughtless and they’d messed it all up royally. They had ruined it. Probably beyond repair (that fact is something however that she does not let herself even process. She doesn’t go there, not once, the thought of _thinking_ about alone it feels like swallowing acid). She just tries to keep him off her mind as much as possible and think of other things. It’s the only way she survives.

 

And it’s getting better now, really, most of the time at least. She has settled into a rhythm, is fine living for Milo and her career for now. Dating anyone with things being as they are is out of the question anyway. She is in no place to put herself out there, doesn’t want anyone even touching her. Anyone but...and that’s the fucked up thing, that she is still pining for him. That she still shivers under her covers on lonely nights despite her best resolutions, remembering how he’d touched her. Not even in bed all the time, also on the ice back in the day. All the little kisses and caresses, the deep gazes and finger tips digging into her skin, his open mouth breathing into her ear, his hands cradling her head, his head between her thighs (both on and off the ice), his grip on her, at any time. She shouldn’t be doing that to herself (again and again and again) but apparently, she loves pain.

 

“Because I hate myself, apparently,” Scott tells Kevin when they meet at a bar three months later after Kevin had asked why Tessa and him had never actually tried being together.

His friend had looked sheepish asking, trying not to open old wounds, but then again, he had just come out of a long and winded, sincere apology for his behavior all those months ago on the ski-trip, so Scott accepts it and let’s him go on about it.

“You know, man, what got me so wound up back then was that I _know_ you, eh?” Kevin continues. “I’ve known you since high school and even then, it was always Tessa, Tessa, Tessa with you and then to watch you get it just so short of _right_ finally and then it turns out to be this giant shit show of you lying to yourselves for over a year and then have a kid in the mix...and it’s just...you’re Tessa and Scott. It doesn’t make sense that you’re fucking it up _this_ much.”

 

“We’re not Tessa and Scott anymore,” Scott says slowly. “Haven’t you heard, we’re nothing now.”

Kevin waits a moment and then, because he obviously hasn’t been satisfied with the earlier answer, repeats himself: “Why didn’t you ever try?”

“I don’t know,” Scott replies and Kevin scoffs. “No, honestly. I don’t know. Too much familiarity, maybe? Too much history, too much love, too much dependency. Maybe all of it. She put it back on the table before she moved out of our building and I ran. Well, not literally. Literally, I went into shock. And I’m not kidding, like shrink-attested _shock._ Just the possibility fried my brain. It scared the shit out of me. She had barely said the words and I’d already drowned in her. It’s...it’s so intense with us, has always been. The things we’ve been through. She’s like one of my limbs. She is a part of me. It’s not...it’s so big. It’s overwhelming.”

“And all of that is bad exactly, _because_?” Kevin asks and neither of them says anything for a while. Scott doesn’t really have an answer to that.

 

As they hug goodbye (and to celebrate the tentative re-boot of their friendship by a sincere, well-intended piece of advice), Kevin pats Scott’s back and says to him before he disappears into the brisk Montreal air: “You’ve got one life, Moir. Is this really how you wanna spend it?”

 

And isn’t that a fucking good question?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry, I am suffering too.


	7. Tessa and Scott and the limits, obliterated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, at the end of our rom-com. Thank you so much for taking this ride with me. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!!
> 
> The entire following scene of Tessa, Scott and Milo draws heavily from "Friends With Kids" and really, if you haven't seen it yet, go watch it, it's really so good!

Scott treads carefully, mindful not to step on a potentially icy stone on the Montreal pavement, because he really shouldn’t fall now, considering he has his son perched up on his shoulders. Milo is in a great mood, has been all day. It’s Tessa’s week but Scott had asked to take Milo to the zoo to see the penguins (“pennins” as he calls them) and they’d had a blast. They had so much fun that Scott might have extended the four pm deadline to five and is now exceptionally late to drop him back off again but he’d at least texted Tess to alert her so she wouldn’t worry. He’d gotten an “ok” back, which was about the extent of their conversations these days. She doesn’t ask him anything and he doesn’t know how to tell her all the things he’s coming to learn in therapy. Or what is happening in his life.

 

How he feels like his condo is shrinking around him, how he broke up with Judith two months ago over breakfast like it was an afterthought and he felt not a single emotion other than relief, how the Christmas season is killing him because everyone, as per the spirit, is going on and on about family while his is in shambles. And then he’d rediscovered the gift he had wanted to give her back in early summer and had formed a plan, or a  semblance of one at least: He is going to give her that gift and hope for the best, hope that when she sees it, she’ll know how he feels, even if he hadn’t had the balls to tell her back then.

 

His feet are heavy as he puts Milo down from his shoulders, holding on to the paper bag with Tessa’s gift with one hand and to his son’s with the other as he takes the gravel path to her house. It’s a nice, two story home a little out of the way, close to a kid-friendly park with a large front and back yard and high trees for privacy. It’s beautiful and welcoming from the outside and he thinks from the inside as well, although he has never gone further than the hallway. He lifts Milo up easily so he can ring the doorbell and smiles as brightly as he can when Tessa opens, greeting them and ushering them both inside from the December cold.

 

“Hey,” she says with a bright grin that is not for Scott and bends down to Milo, stripping him out of his winter coat. “Did you see the penguins, honey?”

Milo fusses as she gets him out of his shoes and gurgles something barely intelligible about the zoo and the animals and about “Daddy” and Tessa encourages him but only until he is finally out of his winter wear.

“Alright, listen, it’s bedtime,” she says more to Scott than to their son and stands up from where she had crouched before, moving her body towards him as if to shove him out of her house with her actual hands. “We should say goodnight to your Dad, it’s already way past the time you slept.”

 

Milo starts complaining immediately, from zero to a hundred on the veritable edge of a terrible-two’s-tantrum (he’s been having a lot of those lately) and says “No, no, no” walking in circles and then crashing against his mother’s legs hitting her with his tiny fist.

“Oh, wait, I just,” Scott says, trying to diffuse the situation (and to get to do what he came into her hallway for) before she literally puts his ass back out into the cold again and rummages in his bag for the gift he’d brought.

“So, um, I know you have him on Christmas and that’s alright but I...you never opened your gift from your birthday, so I wanted to give it to you before, you know, Santa’s here.”

“Oh that’s nice, but no, I, uh,” Tessa says, friendly but dismissive and won’t really meet his eye, let alone reach for the oblong package he is holding out to her. “I don’t need...a gift or anything, that’s fine.”

“No, please just take it,” he tells her, bordering on desperation which he is doing his best to hide. “You can...throw it away if you like.”

“Open it, open it!” Yells Milo now from the sidelines and lets go of her leg to touch his chubby little palm to the wrapping paper and set out on the futile attempt of ripping it open himself.

“I don’t really…,” Tessa tries, her ears growing red the way they had back in the days when anyone had asked them if they were a couple or not and Milo cuts her off.

 

“Open it, Mommy!” He yells again and Tessa squirms visibly.

“No, baby,” she tells their son and then lets him scream on a bit, addressing Scott. “Thanks for taking him to the zoo. But I really need to put him down now, he’s exhausted obviously.”

Before Scott can do or say anything to change her mind, his son comes through for him hard, screaming and stomping his feet: “Daddy, stay! Daddy stay!!”

He shakes his head a little at Tessa and takes half a step back hesitantly, he doesn’t really want to go without having handed her the gift (his great hazy plan sort of hinging on the fact that she gets it) but Tessa looks so uncomfortable he would actually leave now, just to make her a smidge happier. But Milo is off the rails now, kicking and screaming.

“Daddy, stay, Daddy open present,” he shrieks. “DADDY OPEN PRESENT!” And then he screeches, like a small, terrifying dinosaur.

“Okay, okay,” Tessa says. “We’ll say bye to Daddy and then I’ll open the present, okay? I’ll open the present if you promise to go right to sleep after, okay? I’ll open it and then I’ll put you to bed.”

 

“DADDY PUT ME TO BED!” Milo screams and finally does his power move, which is throw himself on the floor dramatically (so _very_ dramatically, Scott thinks he might make a great ice dancer one day) and pounds his fists on the hardwood floors and roars. “DADDY PUT ME TO BED! DADDY STAY!!”

“Oh, oh no, buddy,” Scott tries, feeling sorry for having caused all this havoc but his voice barely carries over his son’s tantrum. He looks at Tessa, forlornly, trying to tell her he’s sorry with his eyes and that this isn’t what he wanted but she only holds his gaze for a moment before plucking a high-pitched screeching Milo from the ground and says: “Okay, okay, okay, Milo! We’re gonna both get you ready for bed and then we’re gonna open the present and then you’re gonna go sleep real quick, okay? Okay?”

 

“Okay?” Scott asks Tessa, trying to make sure if this is really alright with her but she just shrugs like ‘It’s too late now, anyway’ and hands him the thrashing boy who is appeased once he registers that he’s gotten what he wanted (someday soon, they’re gonna have to have a discussions about setting boundaries with him).

Tessa walks ahead, like he’s a stranger intruding on her home and tells him she’s sorry for the mess. It’s not messy at all. There are maybe two stray toys lying on the couch in the corner and a safety blanket on one of the chairs and that’s it. The rest is Tess-style-furniture-catalogue ready.

 

She leads them upstairs, taking over the gift from Scott as she walks ahead and he has a hard time dealing with the scent of this place because it’s all Tessa. It’s all home, vanilla and strawberry and sweetness and he wants to cower in a corner and cry..or like, rub his face on the carpet inhaling her fragrance that is all over the place. She turns the corner and there is Milo’s room and it looks like it had back in her place at his building, the same colour scheme, the same furniture (just a bigger bed now that Milo is getting so grown-up). Above his changing table on the board with the baby powder and diapers hangs his name tag from the hospital. “Milo Joseph Virtue-Moir”. Scott still dies a little every time he sees that.

 

“So, let’s get you in your PJs and then we’ll open the present, alright?” Tessa asks Milo and Scott can only help assist her in changing their son. He is lost in the way she has now sorted his clothes here but he finds the PJs on the second try and picks a pair that he liked from when Milo’s revolving wardrobe had brought them over to his dresser at Scott’s place. One, because Milo gets into them easily and two, because they have Batman on them. But then the PJs that had fit so well back when Milo had them with him last at Scott’s, don’t fit quite so well anymore.

 

“Oh, you’re getting big, huh?” Tessa asks her son, trying to maneuver him into the shirt.

“Yes, big,” Milo says and Scott suddenly has tears in his eyes just watching them. His family, this is _his_ family, for Gods sake.

“Here, let me,” he offers and tries to pull himself together as well as Milo’s little arm through the even little-er sleeve.

“Thanks,” Tessa says, staunchly not looking at him but together, they manage to get their son into his pyjamas and onto his bed, where they wedge him between them and place the present on his small lap.

 

“So you wanna open it? Huh, wanna rip it up?” Tessa asks him with that high-pitched excited Mommy-voice but Milo shakes his head.

“No, Mommy open,” he says and so she does. She tears away the layers of gift-wrap until she hits the box, undoes the lid and tosses it to the side and then sees what’s inside.

“What is that?” She asks, still in Mommy-voice. “What could that be?”

When she finally figures it out, unearths the book he has made for her (a really thick, really fancy picture book with tons of photos and memories he had had printed and cut out and put together himself, with an in-lay on the cover with their old logo on it), she pauses.

 

She can’t believe he put their stupid old monogram on it and below “The Virtue-Moirs”, like they were a family. Like he had gotten his shit together and taken his chance and not blown it to high heavens in the early summer. The thought that he had wanted to give this to her on _that_ night, is like some tragic, fucked-up comedy.

“You wanna open it?” She asks Milo, whose little fingers have already shot out to the lid of the book and she does her damndest to keep her grip on her voice and her eyes off of Scott and helps Milo open up the thing when he says “Yes, Mommy!”.

 

The first page is already a punch to the gut. She hasn’t looked at these photos in months and months, for a good reason.

“Do you know who that is?” Scott asks Milo, pointing to the page full of pictures of them as kids, separately and together, in their cute little skating outfits and one at a competition that looks like he’d printed it off from the internet.

 

“Mommy and Daddy,” says Milo, because he knows those photos from that _other_ book that’s kind of about his parents as well.

“You’re right, that’s Mommy and Daddy,” Scott tells him softly and Tessa feels her throat close up slowly.

“Looking really dorky,” she adds and turns the page quickly. Maybe she shouldn’t have.

“See this is you,” Scott says, pointing at a picture of her with her big round baby belly, maybe at seven months, that time where she was so crazed for his touch and his hands and his everything that she was glowing every time he was near and that’s so painfully captured for all eternity in this picture. It’s ridiculous how happy she looks, how dazed and in love, even if she hadn’t known she was back then, or hadn’t admitted it to herself at least.

 

“This is you inside Mommy’s tummy,” she tells her son over a grin that is hard to maintain. “Look how big I was, like a balloon!”

“You looked beautiful, that’s my favorite picture,” Scott tells her and she can feel his eyes on her, knows the crinkle of his eyes by heart and knows how his lips open, how he licks them, how he studies her without having to look. But he doesn’t get to do that anymore. He doesn’t get to look at her like he loves her anymore when he so clearly doesn’t.

 

“Alright, that’s enough,” she says and closes the lid of the book before she can do something stupid like cry and swoops up Milo right after, making Scott scoot from the bed. “Let’s put you down, baby, we had a deal.”

Milo is pliant enough and lets her put him under the covers and give him a way too long kiss on the forehead that she uses to steady herself and hopefully hold on to what little composure she has left and then she steps back to let Scott say goodnight to him too. Scott is leaning down to give him a kiss when Milo’s little voice starts singing her requiem.

 

“I want Daddy to sleep at our house,” he says and the world ends.

 

Scott turns around to her, looking up with panic written on his face and Tessa can’t do much else but stare back at him in horror. They are not ready to have this conversation.

“Um, honey,” she starts but Milo is not done tearing her heart and soul open apparently.

“Why doesn’t Daddy sleep at our house?” He asks.

“Well, um,” she tries bending down to be closer to him, hoping that by the time she knows what to say, she’ll still have a voice. “Daddy sleeps at _his_ house and you know what?”

“What?” Milo says, eyes big, waiting for some grown-up piece of wisdom that Tessa has to scramble for quickly to produce.

“That’s why you have two houses to sleep in because you’re the most special ever and only really special kids get two houses to sleep in,” she rambles, hoping her darling son will be satisfied with that very pg, very bullshit-version of things.

 

Unfortunately, she will never find out because then Scott, crouching by the bed, does one of the most stupidest things he’s ever done (and that’s saying a lot).

 

“I wish I could sleep at your house, buddy,” he says and Tessa let’s out a hiss. He turns around, meets her eyes and she could kill him right there on the spot. Just not in front of their child.

“What are you doing?” She asks him under her breath and he just shrugs at her. The _nerve_ on this man.

“I wanna stay in your house,” he repeats without shame and she could strangle him with her own two hands. But instead, she turns back to Milo, pats his blanket a couple of times and says: “Okay, sweetie, I love you so much, goodnight okay?”

With that she snaps back up and leaves the room, hissing an “Out!” to Scott on her way into the hallway and shuts off the lamp, leaving Scott to say goodnight to his son in the dim glow of his nightlight.

 

By the time he gets out of Milo’s room and closes the door behind him, Tessa has already paced a hole into the carpet and hits him in the shoulder when he’s close enough to touch.

“What was that?” She asks him (‘asks’ is putting it lightly, really). “Huh? You wanna tell me what that was about?”

“I’m sorry,” is all he says.

“You can’t say shit like that,” she tells him, the expletive for once easy on her tongue because what was he thinking? That stupid, stupid man! What is he on about anyway? How does he _dare_? “To a kid! You can’t say shit like that to a child, do you understand that?”

“I know, I know,” Scott says hurriedly and sheepish (which is at least something). “I know and I’m sorry. I just...um...you know, I didn’t want him to, you know, think that…”

“Think what?” She challenges. “Think what, Scott?”

 

Instead of answering like a normal person, he jumps at her, hands first closing around her neck and then crashes his lips onto hers, giving her a start as her heart drops to the floor.

“Don’t do that,” she says and she pushes him away. “Please don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again and looks about as shocked as she is. What is happening here?

 

“Look, I’m sorry if you’re lonely, Scott, I’m sorry your Mom calls me every other week to tell me how guilty you feel but I can’t do this with you again. You can’t have it both ways. And you absolutely can’t come into my house and say all this confusing shit to a two-and-a-half-year-old, you just can’t.”

“I know,” he says and just won’t stop staring at her and she can’t believe that this is happening and that she still wishes it could be _real_ despite her better judgement and knowledge. And screw him! Screw him for thinking he just gets to do that.

 

“Look, I’m finally in a good place.” She says. A lie, but getting truer and truer by the day. “I’m not angry at you, I’m not pining for you, I’m keeping busy. I’m good. So just...just go home, Scott. You don’t need to do this.”

“Tess,” he tries.

“No,” she cuts him off. “Please, whatever it is. Don’t do this to me. Just leave. Please.”

 

And so he does. Even if he takes his time and stops twice on the steps down. But he doesn’t turn around. Of course he doesn’t. Because whatever he feels for her, it’s not enough to stay and make his case, obviously.

 

It _is_ enough to completely railroad her with that antic in there with Milo that will go and paint her as the villain in their child’s eyes, the one that doesn’t want Daddy to sleep in their house. It’s also enough to kiss her, like he can just have her at his command, like she’s a piece of furniture, a book he peruses and then never puts back on the shelf, just leaving her there, open on the floor. It’s not enough to fight for her, for once in his goddamn life. (This is unfair, he had fought for her, time and time again, but she’s angry now, so she doesn’t have to be fair.) Enough of that, enough forever. When the door closes downstairs, she sinks down to sit on the landing and hopes that this hasn’t just thrown her back eight months.

 

Ten minutes later, at a red light a few blocks over, Scott closes his fists around the steering wheel, bile in his throat. What is he doing?! Why is he leaving? How much more of his life can he waste not going for what he wants? He’d always went for what he wanted, with single-minded focus and so much grit and determination. Why won’t he go for this? When it’s the most important thing he could ever chase in his life?

 

The light turns green and he stays where he is, staring into the void. The other drivers behind him start honking. But when he signals for a u-turn, the light is back to red.

 

Back at Tessa’s place, he nearly runs in the door, beating his fist against it and ringing up a storm. When she opens it for him, she’s in her sweats and an old shirt (that might be his, he’s not sure). She looks flustered and puffy and like she’s still ready to murder him.

“Scott,” she just says and then he’s pushing past her into her hallway.

“I can’t just leave,” he tells her.

“Scott, please-”

“No,” he cuts in. “Please just let me say it. Let me say it, just _once._ ”

Tessa groans, pained but resigned and shrugs and it’s as good of a permission as he’s gonna get so he takes a deep breath, plucks all the courage he’s ever had access to and starts speaking.

 

“I love you.” Which is a good start, he thinks. “And I was a stupid idiot and when you said those things on your birthday, I...I imploded. I got scared, T, terrified. I got so scared I just went into shock. This is so much bigger than me.” He gestures between the two of them, hoping she’ll understand. “The scope of my...my feelings for you, it just crashed down on me and I couldn’t handle it. I could handle pining for you and wanting you but when it was...when there suddenly was that possibility that we could finally go there, I shut down. And I’m so sorry, I’ve been sorry from the moment it happened. And I haven’t lived, not a day, since.” Tessa doesn’t respond, she just stays where she is and looks at him and he does the only thing he can think of which is sink down to his knees and beg her. “I know I hurt you, I know you have no reason to forgive me.”

 

And that is when his voice breaks and the tears come free, too many to contain. “But I need you to know. I need you to know I died a little bit every day, hating myself. Completely and utterly and I, God, Tessa, I know how this sounds but I’m not doing this because I’m lonely or I’m feeling guilty but because this is literally not much of a life I’m living anymore. I can’t _feel_ myself without you, I don’t know who I am. I think about you every waking moment and I want you so much, it’s tearing me apart. And I blew it, I did. I fucked us over and we got this whole thing backwards and it was insane and I should’ve known I would fuck it up but here I am. I’m broken without you and I’m not...I won’t put it upon you to fix me, I’ll walk right out of here if you say the word but I can’t...I can’t go back to my life and not say this and not sit here and beg you. Beg you to please, please give me another shot. To finally get it right. I know I don’t deserve it. I never wanted to hurt you, T. And I just hurt myself so much more than you could ever imagine. I love you, so much. Everything about you, in every conceivable way. I just love you. Fuck, I love you, I _love_ you. That’s..that’s what it comes down to. I love you.”

 

Okay. He thinks he’s done. For now. Mostly because he can’t really talk anymore. So he stops and looks up, on his knees like the worm that he is, gazing up at the love of his life as if she’s the stars and the moon, with her own eyes brimming with tears and an expression on her face that he’s never seen in all his years knowing her.

 

“Shit,” she says. “Shit.”

And he’s terrified again, but by now, he’s used to it, so it just falls to the wayside.

“Shit.” She goes on. “What am I supposed to do with that? I mean what am I supposed to do with _that_?” She gestures at him crouching on the floor before her and he can’t help but reach up and put his hands on her hips, holding on to her for dear life. She takes it in stride. “You just crash in here and say all this self-reflected, grown-up, great stuff and I’m supposed to just believe you and forget everything that happened? Everything you’ve put me through?”

 

“I know, I know what I’ve said and what I did that night and I...I know you won’t believe me but I never _wanted_ to do that, I have no idea still why I did either, but...all I can say is, it was just...too much. I wasn’t ready. And I know my timing sucks and it has always sucked and we’ve hurt each other a lot along the way but...you’re the love of my life, Tess. You’re my person. You’re...everything. And have been for as long as I can remember. And I miss you so much.”

 

He says and finds her hands pressed to her side, finds them and tugs. “I miss you every day.” He tugs. And finally, she sinks down to the floor to him, ending up face to face, closer than they have been in months and months.

Her eyes are wild and unreadable but he finally lets her see him again, holds that connection to her and strips himself naked, letting her see that he is serious, that this is all that ever mattered, all that will ever matter again.

 

“Don’t you miss me? A little bit?” He tries, a desperate hail mary.

 

“I miss you a little bit,” she whispers, finally and Scott’s heartbeat is so erratic, he almost overhears it over the rush of blood past his ears. “But I’m scared, Scott. I’m scared that you’ll just change your mind again.”

 

Instead of rambling on again, he just closes the distance between them and kisses her, hard and pleading and this time, she lets him. This time, she gives some of her own pressure back as her palm lands on his neck, the other one fisting his coat. He could get lost in this already, in the touch of her skin and the taste of her mouth but she’s said something and he needs to address it.

 

“I won’t change my mind,” he breaks away to tell her, holding her inches away from his face so he can speak and goes cross-eyed to look into her eyes. “This is it for me, you’re _it._ It’s always been you. And I was just too stupid and blind and scared to own it, T. I’ll never fall out of love with you. I haven’t for _fifteen years._ Even when I tried to get away from it all, from skating, from myself, from you, I never stopped loving you. I never will stop loving you. I will _never_ stop. I don’t think I even know how. Loving you...is who I _am._ You gotta know this, you have to.”

 

He kisses her again, softer this time and shorter, before he's leaning out again. “Please,” he begs, once more. “Please give me one last chance. Please. Let me make love to you. Real, actual love. Not desperate hormonal hooking-up or drunken sex to have a baby or vaginal fucking intercourse to induce labour but because I love you and I want you and I want your body and your mind and your soul and absolutely everything you are. Please. What do you say?”

 

She looks at him for an eternity in a moment and there is that flicker of a smile crossing her lips that makes him dare to hope. “I say,” Tessa starts and he doesn’t breathe. “Make love to me.”

 

It’s all he needs.

 

Tessa’s head is a mess and her body is goo. So it’s a good thing Scott takes the lead where they’re sitting in her hallway and he scoops her up into his arms, lifting her from the ground as easily as he had in their years of skating together until she is sitting on his hips, held up by one of his arms while the other navigates them through her house, around the corner to the guest room she points him to dimly (upstairs where her bedroom is, is decidedly too far away). She knows that this will take a while to process and that she is nowhere near forgiving him (and that the first thing after her first coffee tomorrow will be to call JF and set up the mother of all counselling sessions) but what she is absolutely certain of, is that she wants this. With all her heart.

 

He is an idiot and he has been a coward but he’s her idiot and tonight, he had been brave. He had crashed against their self-imposed limits, the ones that had stuck with them for years and years, even after their retirement made them obligatory and now he had obliterated them, freed himself and gotten after what he wanted. Which was good, finally, and right, because that’s what she wanted to. He had come back to fight for her, to win her back and she loves herself enough to let him win her. If just for her own happiness’ sake.

 

“Tess,” he says and seems to not have much of a reason for it other than wanting to say it as they reach the guest bedroom and he gently puts her down on the floor, kicking the door closed behind him. She looks at him in the bluish sheen of the moonlight coming in from the blind, turning the dark room blue and traces his face with her fingertips. He smiles, that bright, boyish, elated smile she hasn’t seen on him in ages and it throws her back to so many wonderful moments with him, so much happiness and so much love. He kisses her again and when he leans out, his face has switched back to that smoldering intensity, the one that is hers alone and snakes his hands under her shirt (it’s one of his but she doubts he remembers it, she’s had it since Canton) and then he slowly strips her out of it.

 

She’s bare underneath and gasps when his hands brush her nipples and he draws in a sharp breath.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, in reverence, and undoes the knot of her pyjama pants, kisses the corner of her mouth and then trails little kisses and licks down her neck and shoulder, her arm and the side of her body, turns her while doing it, so her legs hit the bed behind her and she sits down so he can finish rolling the pants off of her. He kneels in front of her again and she’s naked as the first day while he is still fully clothed and he barely gets his winter coat off before he puts his mouth on her.

 

“I missed this so much,” he says into her flesh, or at least that’s what she thinks he says, it’s pretty muffled.

 

 _Fuck,_ she’s forgotten how his nose bumps against just that spot when he does that. She’s also forgotten how quickly that alone sends her spiraling. Not to speak of the way he uses his tongue to flick and test around and before long, she can’t decipher what exactly he does down there, knowing only that it’s warm and soft and fucking amazing. He grabs her left leg by the ankle and props it on his shoulder, leaning in more, with his free hand pulling her against his face by the hip. Bonelessly, Tessa arches into him, her hand falling onto his head to grab his hair and reinforce the faster pace he starts going for now.

 

She pants and moans and thinks letting him do this to her might be the best decision she has made in a while. Touching herself these past months hasn’t even come close to how it feels when he does and she wonders how she even survived this long without him, how she survived her own life. How she has almost forgotten the way he could make her feel. Like the universe is collapsing in on itself and he is at the center of it all.

He hums and growls in turn, making her walls vibrate with the sound.

“Scott,” she winces her approval and bucks into his face desperately. He laughs, muffled by her skin and works his tongue into her with skill and experience. “Oh god, _fuck._ ”

He withdraws his hand from her ankle to use his fingers for assistance, spreading her open, finding every last spot he hasn’t lavished with attention yet while his fingers dance over her like he’s got a treasure map and he knows exactly where to go.

“Shit, I’m gonna…” she trails off, almost already over the edge.

He murmurs her name against her and leans in for one last caress, lips, tongue and fingers going in for the kill and she dies, engulfed in flames, with a whimper, shakes violently and comes back to life with a scream, split open as she cries out. When she’s already coming, he keeps at it, slightly twisting his wrist, getting a different angle both inside her trembling heat and on her twitching skin, so that it lasts even longer, doubles in on itself and her eyes roll back into her skull like she just might pass out.

Dimly, through the orgasm that is slow to wear off, she feels him pull his fingers out past her body’s very own resistance. It’s not conscious but she’s clutching him there all the same. Once he’s free, he wipes his digits on his pants and it’s a little bit gross and a little bit cute. He looks deeply pleased, the fact that he got her off giving enough indication that he’s in it for the long run tonight and he won’t let her return the favor for a while. He’ll wanna last. He wants this to last. To say she is delighted would not cover half of it.

 

 _This is real,_ she thinks, finally. It’s pure. It’s them, together. In love. It’s really all that matters.

She finds his eyes now, still kneeling before her and he smoothes over the skin on her legs with lazy hands, kissing the inside of her thigh soft like a feather’s graze and she’s all set to keep going. Just like that. He must know it, because he flashes her a wide, confident smile. _Her_ smile.

“That was,” she starts but has to catch her breath to go on, “a good start.” While her heartbeat booms through her, both of them know ‘good’ is a crass understatement.

“Yeah?” he asks anyway, a little desperate for her approval and his eyebrows are doing _that_ thing to which she responds to with gentle pressure of her foot on his shoulder, softly kicking him away.

 

“Now, will you take those clothes off or what?” she says, bending forward to touch him but he jumps to his feet, getting out of reach.

 

And If he wants to play it like that, she’s game. She steps up to him, her feet protesting the weight to carry but she remains stubborn and lifts her hands to his collar. He watches her quietly, almost shaking as she unbuttons his shirt and his breathing is shallow, dotted with interruptions and his hands are balled into fists at his side. Once she’s got them all loose, it takes a bit of effort to roll the stiff fabric off his arms, especially because she tries to touch as much skin as she can before she gets it off and discards it to the floor. His white undershirt is next and he gasps and shudders when she gathers it from under his belt and pants. She catches his eye just before she pulls it off of his head.

He interrupts her slow undressing of him by wrapping his glorious arms around her once more and any faint taste of herself she might’ve found on his lips is gone when she kisses him. He pushes his tongue into her mouth and she revels in his urgency. Apart from this though, he remains still, just taking it in as it seems, getting used to being touched like this outside of stupid plans and ridiculous self-denial. He is still kissing her when she starts to mess with his belt buckle because she is getting antsy, turned on out of her mind as she is. Heat runs from her head into every single toe and pools in her groin, shooting down and there’s an ache inside where she suddenly feels empty without him.

“Impatient?” He chuckles against her lips and moves on to sweep his tongue along her jaw, nibbling and sucking wherever he feels like lingering. She has a pretty good idea that he lives for this moment. And so does she, so had she, she realises, for the better part of her life.

“Bite me,” she teases and has arrived at his button and zipper. It’s a testament to her own self-control that she doesn’t rip it open.

“I can do that,” he says when she gives his pants a push down and they fall easily. Glancing down between them, she shivers in anticipation, while he is occupied sucking and biting the skin beneath her left earlobe raw, his faint stubble sure to leave her with a mean beard burn and likely bruising from his mouth. His boxer briefs are going to be a bit harder to get off, stretched as they are over his length. She tries to be smooth about it but trembles for nerves and he gives a stifled hiss of pain when she yanks too hard and his dick bounces free almost spitefully.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’ll make it up to you.”

As the first muscle responds to her brain’s command of _bend_ , he’s already stopped her, hands gripping her waist and neck as he steps out of his underwear.

“No,” he says and kisses her cheek gently, finding her eyes after and his features are soft and adoring and so much the man she has missed so much in the last year, she almost cries. “I won’t last if you do that.”

“We’ve got time,” she says, a little impatient with him still. She wants him in her mouth and she doesn’t mind one bit if he comes.

“Exactly,” he says and then returns to his earlier spot beneath her ear to whisper. “I want to be inside you the first time.” Her breath stalls.

 _Fine,_ she can live with that order of events just as well and she means to tell him as much, all sultry and sexily, but the only thing she gets out is a shaky “Okay” that sounds like she might be dying. He hums in reply, smiling, and then she’s suspended in the air again, wrapped around him and he puts her on the bed gently, sighing in her ear. And then he kisses her, bent at an awkward angle above, for what feels like hours and she thinks she might explode if he doesn’t do something _soon._

 

“You said something about coming inside me?” she reminds him and he snorts out a laugh but then switches right back to sin as he lowers himself down onto her, arms propping him up on either side of her body. “Scott,” she whispers. “Make love to me.”

He gazes at her and watches, taking her in as he finally pushes inside without ceremony, filling her up so she feels whole and complete beneath him, the last year and all the pain succumbing to this one moment of truth and she has a hard time keeping up with him when he starts moving from how overwhelming it all is.

She moans long and low and he echoes her, his mewls, grunts and gasps falling freely from his throat, louder every time she grinds her hips up to meet his thrusts.

After a while, some artfully executed position changes, and with both of them panting and sweating, he picks up the pace the way he does when he gets close and he hasn’t been lying about being too riled up to last very long. She can feel him shake before he probably knows he’s done with himself and so he looks almost startled when he comes apart, eyes locked on hers and she counts herself lucky that she gets to see his face do _that_ again. Loves that she gets to see his mouth twitch and then stretch into that soundless “oh” and his eyes bulge as if his brain just bursted. He jerks into her forcefully, two, three more times before he collapses on her mouth, kissing her clumsily like only she can give him back his peace of mind. He rolls his hips into her slowly after, leisurely until the last wave of pleasure has ebbed and then pulls out, keeping his lips on her body.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, because he didn’t wait for her to finish but she doesn’t mind.

“We have time,” she tells him again and watches his flushed face turn to a grin.

“All our lives,” he says.

 

And just like that, in this very moment, it has all been worth it.

 

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap.
> 
> The sexy bit at the end I stole from myself from another fic but i recently re-read it and thought so much of TS that I really wanted to remix it and this story just fit so well..so there you go. 
> 
> THANK YOU endlessly for all of your kind words and your engagement with my fic, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this chapter and maybe your opinions on the whole thing.
> 
> Thanks again, a million times <3

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading!! <3


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